


We're All Mad Here

by Chrysiridia_rhipheus



Series: Curiouser and Curiouser [1]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Freeform, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I have no idea what I'm doing, Like I promise Alastor will be in this eventually, My First AO3 Post, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Burn, The Rating Will Become Relevant, Violence, We Die Like Men, emphasis on eventual, possible triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:15:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 154,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysiridia_rhipheus/pseuds/Chrysiridia_rhipheus
Summary: You're an angel that finds themself crash-landed into hell, and not just anywhere in hell, but smack in the middle of Wonderland.  Lost, injured, and completely alone, you make your way to the Happy Hotel, hoping to find some allies and trying to rebuild the pieces of your life.  Cast out for your blasphemous views on the judgement of souls and for interfering in the lives of mortals, can you make a new life for yourself in the bowels of Hell?  And how does the Radio Demon, a man who makes his own rules and imparts his own judgements, fit into that new life?This work is heavily inspired by Dapper Dresser and My Darling angel.  (Two awesome fics that you should totally read if for some reason you haven't already)Also this is my first EVER post to AO3. Huzzah!
Relationships: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel)/Original Character(s), Alastor (Hazbin Hotel)/Reader, Charlie Magne/Vaggie
Series: Curiouser and Curiouser [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993255
Comments: 462
Kudos: 535





	1. Prologue

Prologue:

* * *

There’s this feeling, this vertical rush of diving. It starts in the flat soles of your feet and arcs like hot white lightning up your spine, and your whole being is turned inside out, your insides turn to a gas that you breathe into the wind, whipped away as gravity takes your body.

You have always loved this feeling, its elation, freedom, complete and total ecstasy. You imagine it’s the closest any holy being can get to the original Maker. When you descended to earth for the first time, to guide your new chosen soul on the path to light, it was this feeling which gripped you most strongly. Dropping in a blur from heaven, gliding on partially closed wings and then _snap_ catching the air with one hard downward stroke. It was poetry in motion, _you_ were poetry in motion

That love, it doesn’t leave you, even now as you **fall** , you can feel a perverse sense of joy bubbling up in you, leaving your lips in silent peals of laughter, floating away through the white hot flames. You are **falling** , you are burning, singeing the pure blue sky like a bloody comet, plunging down, feeling the wind whip unnaturally through the holes in your wings.

But the feeling, it is still beautiful, absolute freedom, poetry in motion. Even as the skies around you turn from blue to gray to blood red, even as the skin chars and flakes from your hand, still reaching out towards the painfully white blur that was your home, even as your wings burned to useless scaffolds that will never catch you from this dive, you laugh.

You laugh all the way to Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi All! This is my first ever post to any fanfic site, which is nuts since I've been reading fanfic for years. I've really wanted to post something for a long time, but just haven't had the guts to put myself out there, so 99.99% of all the fics and other stuff I've written is just rotting on my hard drive.  
> I have been on a Hazbin TRIP lately, can’t say if it’s the extended quarantine or the sheer charisma of Vivzie’s world, but I fell for Hazbin hard and fast, and in the last week I’ve consumed like three full books worth of fanfiction for this thing. In any case, somehow Hazbin became my muse, which seems to be the case for a lot of you, and something about the attitude of the community and the general silly/fun vibe of a lot of the fics I've read seemed really chill to me. I figured, if I'm gonna put myself out there with a first post, it might as well be something low-key and flexible like a Hazbin fic, plus I know I'll have enough room to go into some serious places if I want to.  
> This fic is mostly for fun, and probably won't have a strict upload date, I'm just going to post things as they come to me. But even though this is a casual project, I would super appreciate any and all comments and criticism, whether its about my writing style, pointing out typos or errors, correcting or critiquing my head cannon, or anything else you want to say, I would love to hear it. I fully expect like no one to read this, so any and all thoughts are a huge plus, and I'm sure you guys know way more about how this should work than me, lol.
> 
> Anyways, if you are reading this, thank you so much! I hope you enjoy!


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wake up confused and in pain, only to realize where you are...
> 
> Reminder, all characters and settings and all that belong to the wonderful and talented Vivziepop.  
> And again, I want to shout out "Dapper Dresser" and "My Darling Angel" for inspiring this fic.

Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit Hole

* * *

It feels like you wake immediately, but given that you don’t remember landing, you quickly figure you must have been knocked out for at least a few minutes. Your skin doesn’t feel the blistering heat of your descent anymore, which you suppose could mean that you simply burned off all of your skin, but given the lack of thick smoke in the air, you estimate instead that you have been senseless long enough for your body to cool down. Not that you feel much of anything. 

You can still feel the ghost of your laughter though, almost manic, still faint on your lips like the pure feeling of falling is in your chest. The reason though, its fuzzy, it slips away from you like a passing thought. You know you were burning, falling, but thinking about it makes your head swim and your vision darken, so you just let the thought float away like a molted feather. Above you, you see only red haze, fading orange as you track the sky to the right, all the way to the edge of a…black something.

You groan, and attempt to run a hand over your face, but you feel some resistance. A lot of resistance actually. That’s…strange, and concerning. You turn your head slightly to see your arm buried under chunks of rust-orange rock and debris. Come to think of it, your whole body feels weighed down, and the edges of your vision are blocked in all directions by a towering red wall. With a quiet grunt, you work your shoulders to dislodge some of the still-warm rocks, slowly edging your way down your arms until your upper body is free. Sitting up, you work the same slow process on your legs, revealing the ends of your robe, tattered and stained a rusty brown with the dust. Your skin looks awful, charred into huge reddish-black oozing welts, down to the bone in some places, but it’s already knitting itself back together. You’re a fast healer, all angels are, and fire has never been particularly deadly to your kind. Unconcerned, you brush the small red stones off of your quickly healing skin, leaving the smaller pebbles to come out on their own. Honestly, you’re more worried about your robe, it’s in shambles. 

Frowning, you struggle to your knees and pull off the tattered garment, looking at it briefly in dismay before attempting to retie it in some…approximation of clothing. Your head is swimming, drowning really, and your ears are ringing like a church bell. As your skin stiches itself back together and your mind clears somewhat you realize that you can in fact feel. You feel _pain_. Everywhere. All of you aches, throbbing like an old wound. Running your shaking hands along your body, you find that the end of your left horn is shattered, leaving a jagged edge. You remember…burning, and falling. Had you missed your landing?

You glance around quickly, your still-fuzzy mind slowly registering the strangeness of your red surroundings.

_Where…?_

You look up, wincing even in the dusky orange light, and find the ground sloping away from you sharply in all directions. What you had though was a red wall looked actually to be the top of a hill, or maybe the rim of an…impact crater. Oh Michael, you really hadn’t landed you had just crashed into this grotesque red landscape. And only one place you could think of was so endlessly red. 

All at once you are panicking, trying to push yourself to your feet. Your suddenly very _unfamiliar_ feet, which crumple beneath you as you fall back into the dust. You clench your fists in the gritty red sand and try to get your bearings. You _had_ to stand. You _had_ to get out of here, this place _couldn’t_ be what you thought it was…what you prayed it wasn’t. 

But who was going to hear your prayers now? Instinctively you look up for guidance, but find yourself gaping, horrified, into the red sky. It _couldn’t_ be, no one had **fallen** In centuries, you of all beings couldn’t possibly have…

But as your eyes land on a distant white disk in the sky, like a taunting moon, pristine and haloed, you know it to be true. You know you have been Forsaken. You have **fallen**. 

Tears drip unnoticed onto your lap, your ruined wings extending out beside you, casting a dim shadow across the bottom of your crater. Even as your charred skin heals, and your body becomes something _else_ something _unholy_ all you can do is wail, scream your sorrow into the red sky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Guys! I’m gonna be using the notes for details about my headcannon/ stuff I’m doing that may not line up with Vivziepop’s actual canon. Feel free to ask questions or load critiques in the comments, especially if they pertain to canon stuff, I did some research but I know I will probably miss a lot of the smaller details.  
> 1) According to what I’ve read, Michael is the current king of heaven, and there isn’t a god *persay* that I know of. As such, I’m referring to the concept of a monotheistic god as the “Maker”  
> 2) There’s not a ton of info I could find on angel anatomy, I’m not even sure if they bleed like humans and demons do, but for the purposes of this story, yes angels get injured and bleed like everyone else, they’re just harder to hurt, generally.  
> 3) Every time I use the word “fall” to refer to the act of an angel falling to hell, it will be in bold just so it’s clear how I’m using it, I expect it will come up a lot. I am also using the word “Forsaken” intermittently to refer to fallen angels, cause the copy of Dante’s inferno I read in high school used that word and I always loved it used to refer to people no longer in God’s grace.  
> And just a general PSA, I’m not Catholic or Christian, but I will be using some pieces of biblical lore to fill in gaps, if I get anything horribly wrong PLEASE let me know, I don’t aim to offend anyone. Know that I am just aiming to create something entertaining and fun, and I am always open to criticism and feedback.


	3. The Pool of Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once you realize where you are, you know you need to get out of there, and fast. 
> 
> Reminder, all characters and settings etc. belong to Vivziepop,  
> And one more time, shout out to "Dapper Dresser" and "My Darling Angel" for giving me the idea for this fic and for inspiring me to actually post it.

Chapter 2: The Pool of Tears

* * *

You don’t know how long you stay like that, frozen in lamentation, but at some point your wail dies and silence descends—silence which lets you hear a growing noise at the edge of your perception, like thousands of screaming voices. _Demons_. 

Your scream must have attracted them. You’re voice had never been that…loud before, but that wail was probably painfully audible to anyone nearby. Angels of your choir are universally soft spoken, and sure, you could raise your voice, but not like that. The sound you produced had been so foreign, and so ear-splittingly loud. It was unexpected, and, you realize, stupid. You had just given yourself away, if you hadn’t already what with the impact crater, given yourself away to _who knows how many demons_. You don’t even know _where_ you are much less what sort of horrors could be around you, and now you’ve gone and drawn a crowd. 

You realize you’re shaking, breathing heavily and still on your knees. You wrap one arm around yourself and try to take a deep breath.

 _Focus._ You are trained for this, trained for combat. Sure it’s been a while since you’ve had to use that training but you can do this, you just need to calm down and focus. 

You’re in hell, that much you know. You need to get yourself together and figure something out, because this entire _world_ was now teeming with things that wanted you dead or worse. You shudder, remembering the mangled bodies of the 9th Choir returned from the extermination. _Demons were known to show cannibalistic tendencies_ if you could call it that. Everyone knew the literature, and you would be as helpless as a 9th choir rookie just sitting here in the dust. 

Abruptly, you try to stand, but find your equilibrium is way off. Somehow you _overshoot_ standing, which isn’t a motion you had ever considered possible, and pitch forward into the dirt. Again. Gritting your teeth on a mouthful of metallic-tasting sand, you try again, slowly. Once you get your feet under you, you watch them like a hawk, trying to intimidate them into functioning. _Had your feet always been this small?_ Awkwardly, you manage to stand, your ruined robe bunching around your thighs, oversized. Immediately you see the issue here. You’re short. _Really_ short. Less than half as tall as you should be, at least. 

What had they done to you? Was casting you out not enough? They had to…to mutilate you too? You breathe in through your nose and out through clenched teeth, this is fine. Humans make due with much less, they make choices with much less, you could too, and todays choice was getting the _hell out of here_. 

You snicker to yourself. A pun, good one, Angels were never much for word play, but you were feeling *slightly* unhinged today so what was the harm in laughing about it. Vaguely, somewhere in the dwindling rational part of your mind, you know that all these intense emotions are…unusual—this burning feeling in your soul, the quickness to laughter—but you don’t dwell on it. 

Cocking your head to one side, you try to pinpoint the growing noise as it seeps over the rim of your crater. It seems, maybe, just a little quieter to your left? Possibly? Taking a chance you scramble up the hill to your left on your now pathetically short legs. Michael in Heaven this was going to be a pain, just this little hill was turning into a marathon on these pathetic things. And your feet were already screaming. You rarely actually _walked_ anywhere, so using your feet to claw your way up a rocky hillside was inefficient and painful, but there was no way you could get a standing takeoff from the bottom of a slag heap. 

Cresting the ridge, you take a moment to mentally celebrate your victory, a moment which promptly dies when you see the landscape before you. You’re in a wasteland. All of hell is comparably a wasteland but this is _completely_ barren. Spires of black and red rocks extend crookedly out of the sandy desert floor alongside broken chunks of what may have once been buildings. Burned out cars and dead airships and…was that a _boat?_ All of this to say nothing of the copious dead bodies and body parts, along with other assorted gore. From what you can guess based on the carnage heaped at the bottom of your crater’s rim, you must have crashed into something pretty gruesome, and shredded every demon in the area in the process. 

_Good riddance._ Idly, you raise one taloned foot from the ground and pluck a blood soaked scrap of fabric from between your toes. Less demons here, the less you have to deal with. You figure you should probably exit the area anyways, just in case any of them regain their faculties. Logically, you know that only a Holy Weapon can really kill a demon, but your **fall** was steeped in Holy Fire, and you don’t feel like taking risks with the efficacy of said fire as a demon extermination method. You figure you have only have half a chance that most of these demons are really down for good. You press your fingers to your temple below your shattered horn, trying to quell a growing headache. Your vision is much clearer than when you first woke up, but you still feel distinctly below par, and you certainly don’t want to fight if you can avoid it, in your current position. 

Scanning beyond your immediate surroundings, you see some critically injured demons still moaning off to your left, and a few others crawling towards some rocks for cover. You couldn’t have fallen that long ago, you reason, not if these guys are barely trying to get away. _That’s good_. But it also means you need to get out of here now, before that growing sound gets to you. 

You squint out into the heat-distorted distance, but the shadows are swimming and your head is getting worse, every rock spire looming like Lucifer himself. You feel yourself shaking again, and you know you’re losing it here.

 _Focus_. You take another calming breath, and try to come up with something resembling a plan. In the near-distance, you can see what looks like a city skyline, a Demon population center. You need to rest, recover your strength, avoid fights and figure out how to fix all this. It’s a risk, but a city would have information, tools. In your new body you could feasibly pass for a Demon, excluding your wings…

Your wings…

The thought stirs something in you, through the remembered adrenaline of **falling** , the feeling of air rushing through your wings, unnaturally, horrifically _through_ your wings. In a panic you bring your wings forward, only to recoil from the blackened featherless skeleton. The rest of you had already healed from the fire so why…? Hot tears roll down your face for the second time in as many minutes. You really were a **fallen** angel, they had really taken your wings from you. Mutilated your body, stolen your wings, and cast you out. The cruelty of it.

All at once a noise rips you from your self-pity, a spike in the volume of the ever-rising sound you had been hearing since you awoke. The sound is louder, closer, resolving itself into a horrific jumble of voices, shrieking _hungry_ voices. Looking up from your tattered wing, what was once heat-haze in the near distance transforms suddenly into a writhing mass of bodies. Shrieking, howling demon bodies. Panicked you look behind you, only to see a similar mass cresting the far ridge of your impact crater. 

Cresting the ridge? How long have you just been standing here? You are wasting time you don’t have, so, without a second thought, you launch yourself off the ridge and down into the tattered bodies and approaching mob below. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh, looks like our angel is in a bit of a predicament. 
> 
> More info to come, but for now know that our angel was originally around 14 feet tall, but has found themselves considerably shorter than that here in hell. New demon bodies can be tough :/ 
> 
> From what I’ve seen, angels are sort of bird-like. I’ll give more details about the reader character later, but for now, know they have a set of wings separate from their arms and legs, and taloned feet with three toes (plus one in the back) much like a bird of prey. Their hands are human, and their legs are ~mostly~ human. That’s all about their appearance for now :3. 
> 
> This is my source for info on the angel choirs, I’ll get into more detail later (again), but just so y’all know what I’m going off of (although I don’t *think* it’s technically cannon), this is it: https://aminoapps.com/c/hazbinhotelofficial/page/blog/hierarchy-of-angels/Vpg7_w8F7uoMWadbwWeMmYdQRV0vdZ4d7 
> 
> Additionally, in my head canon, all angels start at the lowest choir and move their way up, so every angel is trained in combat and has combat experience. I’m thinking all angels have taken part in the extermination at some point, even the reader character. 
> 
> That’s all for now folks.


	4. Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god you guys, I genuinely didn't think anyone would read this, TBH the largest group of people I've ever shown something I've written is like my writing workshop classes in college of like 15 people. 100 Hits??? And more than a dozen Kudos??? I'm seriously floored. Thank you to everyone who has clicked on this and especially to those of you who have left Kudos, I hope I can keep you all entertained. :3
> 
> Anyways:  
> In this chapter you leave the crater, and find yourself in a real hell scape...
> 
> All characters and settings belong to Vivziepop, not me, I'm just trying to live in her amazing world :).

Chapter 3: Wonderland

* * *

You manage to keep your footing for all of two seconds before you pitch forward and roll the rest of the way down the rubble heap. Your fall is less than graceful and more than disgusting, given the bodies churned up among the rocks and discarded steel rebar, and while you seem to have come out of your initial **fall** in one, _unholy_ , piece, you can’t say the same for this. The gravel shreds your delicate new skin, and a glancing collision with a chunk of what may have once been a stone wall knocks you breathless. 

It’s not that you _didn’t_ feel pain as an angel. You did…you do. But you remember it always being more…detached somehow. Pain for the holy was an experience seen through a veil, muffled. After all most every angel was expected to be able to pick up a spear and slaughter the demon masses, whatever the cost, should the need arise. Pain in the face of that driving purpose was all but irrelevant, and so it was muted. Even when you woke up in this place, your body hurt, but it was…dull somehow, background noise. 

But this pain, this pain is new, sharp, radiating out from its cause like a spreading poison, locking up your limbs and making you want to curl into yourself and never move again. This pain is immediate, debilitating. Is this how demons always feel things? With such acuity? It’s horrific, a horrific punishment. 

Humans too talked endlessly of pain, you remember. In songs and writing and even in sermon. You find yourself, falling down this bloody crater, gaining a new horrible sort of understanding of the lives your beloved humans must live. 

Wheezing, and coming to a final brutal stop, you bring yourself to your knees attempt to get reoriented, shucking pieces of gore off of your exposed shoulders. You _really_ don’t have time to contemplate the finer points of divine judgement or the tragedy of the human condition, you need to move, and the only place you have to move _towards_ is that city.

Frantically you scan the horizon, finally pinning the hazy silhouette of the city in the fading evening night, right behind the growing mass of a demon mob. From ground level, the mob resolves into something truly huge, just looking at it sends you shaking all over again. 

You need to stay _focused_. You have a goal you have a direction, you just need to figure out how to avoid that mob and get to where you need to be. Easy. Just keep it to one thing at a time. 

You scramble to your feet just as the demons really start to flood over the far edge of the crater, and dash to the nearest rock formation. Amongst the growing cries of “ _ANGEL_ ” and “ _EAT_ ” and “MINE” you manage to make a shuddering sprint towards a partially collapsed, jagged stone thing about 200 meters ahead of you. Your new legs are still pathetically small, and your equilibrium hasn’t fully caught up with your form, but you have the fear of Lucifer in you and you manage to make it into the shadow of the rock still essentially in one piece. 

The noise is suffocating, and only getting louder and more chaotic as the demons pouring into the crater realize you aren’t there. From what you can hear the mob doesn’t seem organized in any real way, perhaps not even entirely sentient, as a decent chunk of the noise seems to be wordless guttural screeching. 

From what you saw at the crater lip, and what you just ran through, you think your impact must have killed over a hundred demons or demonic creatures, and yet from the sound of it alone hundreds more were rapidly coming to fill the void. Where in Hell had you fallen to be so completely surrounded by hordes of bloodthirsty creatures, and in such masses. You hadn’t attended an Extermination in centuries, and the Hell you remembered was certainly no bustling metropolis, but it also wasn’t a violent chaotic wasteland filled with roving mobs. You could only hope that it was your impact, or maybe your scream, which had drawn such huge crowds and that this place wasn’t always—

_SLICE_

You stifle a yelp as a searing pain in your leg yanks you out of your thoughts. Looking down, you see a mangled demon, a purple-ish thing with tiny horns and patchy bristling fur down its very obviously broken spine. The creature had reached out to your legs from where it was dragging itself along the ground, and sliced a gash into your calf, just above where your scaled ankles end, and the ugly thing was staring enthralled at its gore-soaked hand. 

“smells…good” The creature wheezes and, to your horror, brings its claw to its lips and laps at your blood with a long, black tongue. It doesn’t even seem to be aware of its twisted spine and mangled legs, and licks at its hands with such intensity that a string of foaming red drool drips from its open maw. 

Disgusted, you extend your hand to summon your Valiant Weapon, and look down upon the thing in pity. 

“Demon, I will end your suffering and free you to the void” You murmur, focusing your energy into your palm, summoning your weapon from the air and grasping…

Nothing. Nothing materializes in your hand.

Shocked, you step back from the demon, and try again to summon your weapon. 

_Focus, draw your energies into one space, then reach out and_ …

Nothing.

_“Your weapon is an expression of your holy energy, a gift from the Maker and from Michael, to draw it you must tap into the holiness of all things…”_ You can practically hear Gabriel’s voice in your head. You needed to tap into your divinity to draw your weapon. But you had **fallen**. Your divinity itself, the very essence of your being, it had been stripped. 

First your body, then your wings, and now your weapon too? What was it that human had said, when he saw you splattered in blood?

_Fucked._ You are fucked. 

The demon at your feet is so enthralled with its bloody feast, it doesn’t seem to notice your lack of a weapon, or, grotesquely, what begins to happen to its own ruined body. As you watch, the demon seems to _untwist_. Its bones dislocate, popping horribly apart before snapping back together under writhing chords of new flesh. Its mangled spine rotates back into position, and its legs straighten with a sickening wet _crack_. 

Hand licked clean of blood, and legs newly healed, the demon rises to its feet and fixes its slitted eyes onto you once more. 

Dimly, you register that the city is directly behind this now-standing demon, and that that is, in fact, the direction you should be running, before your instincts kick in and you back pedal out from under the rock, useless wings flapping in a frantic effort to create some distance.

You keep backing up, eyes never leaving the corner of the rock spire, right into that angry mob you had been oh-so-cleverly trying to avoid. Immediately you tuck your wings and duck low, trying to create a smaller target and avoid the attacks that were no doubt flying your way. 

All around you the sound of battle rages.

But no attacks come. 

Looking up from under your raised arms, you realize that no one is attacking you because no one seems to have noticed that you are there. It seems like word of your absence from the crater has spread, and the frustrated mob has accordingly moved from “organized march towards the crater” to complete chaos. Demons all around you are literally tearing each other to shreds with teeth and claws, their shouts changing from words to guttural inhuman screeching as they tear each other apart in search of you. What was briefly a wasteland was now an active battlefield. 

Distantly you realize that _this_ is probably what you interrupted with your **fall**. Chaos, bloodshed, senseless violence. The quiet of a few minutes ago had been but a brief reprieve before chaos unfolded once more. It is overwhelming, loud and bloody and stinking as it writhes in front of you. 

You glance behind you, only to lock eyes with the purple demon, looking terrifyingly healthy and now following you out from behind the rock, your blood smeared across its disgusting face and staining its serrated teeth. You look forward again, at the mass of tangled bodies that is the mob. 

Without a second thought, you launch yourself forward into the chaos. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days of uploads?? Well, I did say the upload schedule would be inconsistent haha. 
> 
> Once again!!! This fanfic is heavily inspired by Dapper Dresser by the amazing AppleDaddyo, Caffinatedkitti, and NotBrooke in more ways than I can probably name, but specifically I would like to shout out their inclusion of non-demon animals. Their character Critter is a "Demonis Alligatoridae" which is a species of alligator native to the hellscape. I am totally enamored of the idea of hell as a functioning ecosystem teeming with horrific and deadly creatures, and in my mind, Wonderland is like a wasteland of the worst of the worst, be that newly fallen sinners, demons that have lost their minds, or all manner or scary demonic predators. 
> 
> In my head cannon, occupants of hell fall roughly into three categories: Mortal Soul demons (I.e. Alastor), Non-Mortal Soul demons (i.e. Charlie), and demonic creatures (like what is described above). 
> 
> I think you'll find this mob to be a particularly awful mix of all three :3
> 
> Also, here angel blood is valuable and powerful, even from a fallen angel, and can heal even very serious injuries. Good thing Lucifer is a badass, yeah, or people would be all over that.
> 
> Finally, just in terms of pacing, I think there will be three more action-heavy chapters after this before things slow down. I want to really explore the chaos of falling into Hell, and I'm a total action junkie, for those of you waiting for the fluff, we will get there!


	5. Conveniently Low

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sup Bois! Finished this chapter faster than I expected so here ya go. All this violence is super fun to write! 
> 
> In the middle of a battle you find that your new small size comes in handy...

Chapter 4: Conveniently Low

* * *

Your towering height had always been a point of pride for you. And rightfully so. In heaven, size is quite literally power; the memory of Michael towering above the three veiled Thrones still knots your chest with anxiety. You have no idea just how tall the Seraphim is, but his head alone was nearly twice the size of yours, you estimate he stands at over 20 feet tall. That combined with his raised seat, high above the judges, the air of power was palpable.

Suffice to say in Heaven, high above the mortals, height really was everything. 

Your own height had been impressive, you were tall even for your choir, nearly 15 feet. That size was a mark of your prowess, physical proof of your ascension to your current position. The more glorious the ascension, the taller you emerged into your new choir. You had worked for every inch of that height. 

And now that it was all gone, you can’t help but thank the Thrones for your new puny form. In your new body, with slender shoulders, and skeletonized wings, you barely stand out in this crowd of twisted monstrosities. Your slight frame slips between even actively brawling demons without issue. 

_A blessing in disguise_. 

Pious humans were always spinning those, trying to turn even the most abysmal of situations into some kind of divine gift. 

_A child in a tattered blanket against a freezing stone wall, praying to a distant God, even as the snow covers their body._

_A woman putting the last of her money into the tithe bowl, as six hungry children crowd behind her. She tells them this is merely a trial._

_A young man begging on the street corner, one leg horribly deformed, but his voice is still strong as he sings Hymns for pocket change._

Distracted, you momentarily lose your footing on something slick and warm that squishes under foot. You fall halfway to the ground, your hands landing on the motionless back of a fallen demon, its face in the dirt. 

In front of you, an emerald snake-like creature writhes, its head buried in the exposed ribcage of the corpse. You push yourself back and draw in a staggered gasp, and the snake-thing raises its bloody head to look at you. 

You freeze, hoping that like most reptiles, this creature responds to movement. You are familiar with all of God’s creatures of course, but this is no earthly reptile. You pray that if you hold still it will return to its meal. 

Its slitted pupils dilate and shrink as it sizes you up. 

A thin pink tongue flicks out from its fanged mouth.

Its head sways, then shifts to look down at your leg. 

_Your leg._ Your eyes move down and lock onto your wounded calf, still oozing thick blood down your ankle and onto the ground. Healing, yes, but slowly. 

The creatures tongue flicks faster as its pupils constrict.

This thing can _smell_ you, you realize just as the animal rears back to strike. 

Panicking, you roll hard to your left as the snake buries its nearly foot long fangs into the ground where your leg had just been. The creature shakes its head to dislodge chunks of red stone from its maw, which fall into a smoking molten heap, covered in thick green sludge. 

_Acid venom, perfect_. You don’t know what you expected, but acid venom was certainly _not_ it. 

The snake focuses its gaze on you, and you decide that now would be a great time to make use of your newly small size once again. 

Scrabbling to your knees, you dive right, between a set of long deer-like legs culminating in sharp black hooves. The snake-beast, hissing and following your movement, strikes again only to latch onto one of the slender legs, toppling the tall demon above you into a screeching tangle of hooves and neck. A half dozen smaller creatures converge on the weakened demon, spraying you with arterial blood as you dodge away. 

You wipe your face with the back of your hand and try to get oriented, dodging in and out of knots of screeching demon bodies. The reddish pentagram sun is sinking in front of you, just to your left. You’re not exactly sure what nighttime looks like here, but you need to try and get to a more secure place before anything like darkness falls. 

If memory serves, the city was just to the left of where the sun was from your view on the crater, so your orient yourself towards the dimming blood-red sky and make your way through the brawl. 

You’re making what feels like good progress, generally avoiding attention and dodging behind and between fights to avoid what little attention you do draw. It feels like progress, but realistically, your senses are overrun with the death screeches of hundreds of demons and the stench of hot blood and dirt and evacuated bowels. You even dimly register an acidic noxious undercurrent to the cesspool of smells, making you wonder if some of these creatures don’t employ some sort of chemical weaponry. 

Or, who knows, maybe that’s just the smell of some poor melting demon injected with _acid venom_. You laugh breathlessly, skidding across the blood slick ground as you make a hard right around a pair of horned demons locked in literal head-to-head combat like rabid Billy goats. 

This whole situation is so ludicrous, and you are so comedically unequipped to protect yourself, you find that you are quickly descending into a kind of insane hilarity as you tumble through the crowd.

You awkwardly vault over the hulking corpse of a massive greyish hippopotamus and land in a heap on the other side. Your leg is beginning to really burn, and you think maybe your healing rate is slowing down. The gash hadn’t seemed serious at first, it should have healed by now, but then again you have no sense of time in this place. It feels like decades since you stumbled out from behind that rock.

Crab walking back into the relative shelter of the dead beast’s barrel chest, you try to momentarily catch your breath and check yourself over. Wheezing, you run a hand down the shredded side of your robe and check your ribs, your torso, your hips for injury. Everything seems, thankfully, intact. 

You rock back and maneuver your leg to look at the wound. _Lord in Heaven_ it looks terrible, your whole leg is covered in blood and chunks of Michael only knows what. Tearing a strip off the tattered edge of your robe, you spit on the dirty cloth and try to wipe away some of the mess to get a proper look at the wound.

It takes a moment, but eventually you locate the actual gash. It’s deeper than you thought, but it _is_ healing. Up close you can see that your healing rate is indeed sluggish, and the new skin forming over the wound seems imperfect, taught and pale and shiny. 

_Scar tissue_ you realize, fascinated and appalled. Angels don’t get scars, but then again, demons don’t heal quickly like this. You’re something different, something in-between. 

_At least it’s not bleeding anymore_. You think, balling up the filthy rag in one hand and leaning back into the armored hide of the creature affording you some momentary shelter.

 _This demon blood reeks._ You wrinkle your nose as you throw the cloth away from you, pulling your knees to your chest and waiting for your heart rate to calm down fully. 

…

 _Wait a moment_.

You think back to the way that snake demon was _smelling_ your blood, or the way the first demon had been so enthralled by just the scent of your blood on its hand. As long as they can smell you, you realize, they can learn what you are, your blood will give you away. 

But this demon blood, it reeks all the way to Heaven. You just might be able to…

Shifting onto your feet, you poke your head up over the huge splayed arm of the dead beast and look around you. The fighting seems to have moved somewhat to your left, away from the crater, leaving you in a relatively calm patch. That or all the demons in this one area managed to kill each other so effectively there is nothing alive within your immediate vicinity. 

Ducking back down, you crawl under the arm and up along the chest of this beast until you find its massive gaping mouth. 

_Perfect_. The mouth is packed to the brim with razor sharp serrated teeth and, even better, two long curving lower tusks terminating in mean-looking points. You run a finger over the inside of a tusk and wince, pulling away and inspecting a drop of blood welling along your fingertip. 

_Sharp_. It’s no Valiant spear, but you can’t be picky. 

You stick the bleeding finger in your mouth and tear off another large section of what little remains your robe, wrapping it around the base of the tusk and then grasping it in both hands. 

But you hesitate for a second. 

You find that you aren’t _actually_ sure you’ll be able to do this. You’re tiny. Sure, in your original form you could rip a demons head off with one well-placed yank, but in your current body…even breaking this one tooth seems impossible. 

You’ve never felt this…weak before. You’ve never once wondered if you could _physically_ accomplish something, and the thought that you might not be able to is…destabilizing. 

_Focus_. You know there’s no point in wondering about this. The only way you’re going to learn the limits of your new body is to use it.

Hissing your breath out between your teeth, you brace your good leg against the armored jaw of the creature, straighten your back, and pull. 

Your arms begin to shake before you feel even the slightest budge in the tusk. 

Sweat beads along your brow, your spine begins to ache with the strain, and your bad leg starts burning again with the effort of supporting your weight. 

But you don’t stop pulling, even as your arms start to go numb at the elbows, your joints creaking with the pressure. 

You don’t stop pulling, and the more your body blooms with sharp, immediate, unfamiliar pain, the harder you find yourself working to break the tusk. 

Your whole consciousness seems to narrow down into a single point at the end of your hands. All your unfamiliar emotions, your confusion, uncertainty, betrayal, all of it turns to liquid fire that streams from your chest into your arms, burning a molten arc between your straining palms. 

If you can just do _this_. Just this _one_ thing. _Just this._

Then maybe you’ll have a chance.

You squeeze your eyes shut with the strain, pain lancing up your back, your muscles screaming.

Then all at once you’re flying backwards and rolling over and over and over in the bloody mud, coming to a hard stop against a chunk of rock. Your head spins, reeling to catch up with your body as you stare stupidly into your hands, not comprehending what you are seeing.

Laying across your lap is the tusk, broken off and oozing congealed brown blood at one end. 

You did it.

You _did_ it.

You have a chance after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Have you guys ever seen Alien, or any of those movies? The Xenomorphs have acid blood, which is like, the most insane brutal disgusting thing to me, and totally scared the crap out of me as a kid. So in the spirit of the Xenomorph, I bring you, acid venom. Cause who needs logical biology in Hell?  
> Fun biology fact, “venom” is something that an animal injects you with to hurt you, while “poison” is something that harms you if you try to eat an animal. So a snake with acid in its fangs would be both venomous, since it can inject you with toxic chemicals, AND poisonous, since eating it would probably kill you. I do love all the cool ways animals have to kill each other!  
> In this chapter we get some brief glimpses of our angel’s past. This will be fleshed out later, but for now I want to keep things vague, just know that our lovely angel was very invested in the lives of mortals, too much so, if you ask the rest of Heaven. Stay tuned for some flashbacks, cause they saw a LOT of shit in their time on earth.  
> Also, I will eventually, in text, explain the structure of heaven. I linked a resource for that the chapter before last, but all relevant info will be included in the story eventually, so if you see words or names you don’t recognize, I hope it's inciting curiosity (and not just confusing you). Any resources I link will be for your own curiosity, I hope to have the story explain itself.  
> See you all next time!  
> P.s. I am now accepting bets on whether or not our angel’s poor robe will survive to the hotel.


	6. Such Quantities of Sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi again everyone! I've been in a writing frenzy these past few days so I just keep posting! We are still knee deep in the action, so I have another bloody chapter for you today, enjoy!  
> p.s. Thank you to everyone reading and leaving Kudos. You all are the real angels <3  
> As always, characters and setting belong to the one and only Vivziepop!
> 
> With a weapon and an improving sense of your new body, you make a break for the city. But the path is far from easy...

Chapter 5. Such Quantities of Sand

* * *

You’re not sure how long you sit there just staring and the broken tusk in your lap, but by the time you come to your senses you realize a dark red stain is spreading out from where your hands are still desperately gripping the serrated base of the tusk. 

Wincing, you peel your hands away from the bone with a sickly squelching noise. The scrap of your robe had shifted under your grip, allowing the edge of the tusk to bite into the soft new skin of your palms. But even your slowly healing palms can’t quell your victorious mood. 

The tusk isn’t as long or as graceful as your Valiant spear, but it has a mean curve to it and a good heft, and based on the blood oozing from the heel of your hands, a sharp edge. Just gripping it you feel…you feel better, safer somehow. 

A shriek to your left yanks you attention violently away from your hands, and your head whips around in time to see a smaller red creature with huge pointed ears go flying over your shoulder and smash into the rock with a wet thud. 

You don’t stick around to see what threw the little beast, and instead launch yourself into a crouching run and make a break back to the hippopotamus-corpse for cover. Behind you, you hear a cacophony of repeated high-pitched screams and a low rumbling roar. You don’t look back. 

You need to stick to the plan, that’s all. Hide your smell, then make a break for the city. Easy, two steps.

You haphazardly retie your robe and slice off a final section of the hem. The tattered garment barely covers you, but you feel the need to keep it on, just out of principle. Ripping the long rectangle of cloth into three sections, you tie the thickest piece around the base of the tusk as a sort of crude handle, and then sloppily bandage your hands with the other two. 

Flexing your fingers experimentally, you classify your first aid skills as good enough, especially for your first time really bandaging anything. 

_A young girl bleeds out onto the beige carpet, her blood staining your hands. You don’t know what to do, how to help. Humans are so fragile…_

You shake your head and grip your new weapon. You need to focus on the task at hand. Turning to the quickly bloating belly of the creature at your back, you screw up your face and swing the tusk in one long lateral slice, spilling the noxious guts of the beast over your feet. 

The sensation is disgusting, you can feel every tiny feather on your ankles and along your back raise in revulsion. The creature seems to be rotting already, and the gas pouring from its now exposed stomach cavity reeks of sulfur and methane. 

Your sense of smell is sharper now, you notice. Another sensation you didn’t need in heaven that you have been so thoughtfully gifted with here in hell. 

_No time to waste_ , you know, so you set the tusk aside and get to work slathering handfuls of bloody tissue over your arms and legs. 

Unsure of the anatomy of demons, you generally try to avoid anything that looks like an organ and stick to the general chunks of bloody viscera, praying that you won’t encounter the stomach or worse, intestines of such a grotesque thing. You don’t even want to think about what it has been eating out here. 

You focus your efforts on your wounds, and on your ruined garment, hoping the cloth will soak up the rancid smell and protect you for longer. 

For good measure you even smear a handful across the top of your head working it over your ridged horns and slicking down your hair and downy neck feathers with the fast-drying mess. The feeling is spine chilling, and your newly sharpened sense of smell has your head reeling with the stench. 

Covered in demon blood, you can only hope that the smell of your own blood is lost. You have no idea how pungent it may be, or how acute a demonic sense of smell is, but this is all you can reasonably do to hide yourself. 

You wipe your hands to the best of your ability on your robe, then pick up your new weapon. 

_Time to move._

You poke your head up over the carcass one last time, looking away from the crater. To your shock, you can see a huge demon covered in bristling feather-like quills struggling under a mass of the small red large-eared creatures. Like a pack of dogs, they overwhelmed the larger demon, and now seemed to be feasting on its fallen body. 

_Don’t discount the small demons._ _Even the smallest of Lucifer’s horde possess a frightening bloodlust. Do not approach large groups of demons of any size without your weapon drawn and backup close by. Any being consumed by a horde of demons cannot be revived, so exercise caution at all times._

One of the first lessons you had learned in the 9th choir, you’re remembering in gruesome detail just how crucial those lessons can be. 

Just to the left of the writhing mass of red, you can see the waning light of the demonic sun, and the harsher blue fluorescent lights of the city. That’s your target. 

…

Tucking your wings close to your back and crouching low, you make a weaving break for the city, keeping your new weapon out in front of you. You find that even though your wings are largely charred, they can still help you steer to some extent, and with a combination of banking with one wing and dragging the blunt end of the tusk along the ground, you find you can effectively cut around bodies and brawls without slowing. 

Once you get a rhythm going, you rarely even need to swing your weapon to block the occasional stray blow or grasping hand, you blend almost organically into the fighting, flowing right through it like water.

Your system doesn’t prevent you from tiring, however, and in your new body every action takes twice as much effort. It occurs to you that you may be significantly heavier for your size, if your new body is not meant to fly. You have no way of knowing if you have retained the light physique and hollow bones of an angel, all you know is you’re losing your wind _fast_. 

You literally don’t know what you’re made of anymore, and even as you slowly get the hang of your shrunken proportions and each bank or vault becomes more smooth, you still feel slow, wrong, and the learning curve is steep.

Not only that but you can feel your sweat running tracks down your bloody face, washing away your precious camouflage. By the time the crowd starts to thin, and you think you can just make out the hazy silhouettes of buildings over the thrashing heads, you have a real fear that your scent-costume is compromised. You never expected to be praying that you would reek of rotting demon, but these are desperate times, and you are begging an unfriendly heaven for this one favor. 

Your chest is heaving, and your legs are burning with an exhaustion you have never known, but you keep your head low and your focus on the bright patch of skyline against the nearly black sky.

 _Almost there_. 

Not that you have much of a plan for once you’re actually _in_ the city, but you can tell that the violence around you is dwindling the closer you get, the path ahead of you slowly becoming more clear as you dart between demons. Once you’re out of this…whatever this place is, you can find a spot to camp out for the night and heal, then—

Your focus is so narrowed on your purpose, your surroundings fade, and you don’t see a meaty purple hand extend from the crowd and grab the distal portion of your wing. 

At a full sprint your wing snaps taught, held in place by an iron grip, yanking you off your feet and, you can feel, snapping the delicate metacarpal bone at its end. 

You land flat on your back in the sand, biting back a scream when you feel your bone break, one wing crumpled awkwardly under you, and the other still in the grasp of some hulking demon. 

_Merciful Michael_ , you think as you look at the demon now leering over you. It’s the purple one, from before, the one that sliced your leg and drank your blood. Except its bigger, huge even. Its once tiny horns have grown into long, mean-looking spirals, and its upper canine have grown saber-like, protruding from its upper lip. Even from your angle you can see that the mangy coat of bristling hairs down its back have grown into a shaggy, boar-like mane. 

_A demon transformation_. You know immediately, you can sense the waves of demonic energy rolling off this thing from where it stands above you. A skill you are thankful survived your **fall**.

It’s not an especially powerful transformation, from what you can tell, and it hasn’t really changed the anatomy of this thing in any serious way, but right now you are all the things you should _not_ be when squaring off with a demon, much less one that has transformed.

You are _alone, unarmed,_ and _injured_.

Protocol says you should call for backup.

There is no backup.

“Found you little bird,” The demon grunts, a Cheshire grin lighting up its distorted face and exposing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

“I couldn’t smell you under all that filth,” It hisses, drawing your wing under what you assume to be its nose and inhaling deeply, “no I couldn’t, but I would recognize these wings anywhere, and I would recognize those _delicious_ legs of yours anywhere too.”

Its long black tongue snakes from its mouth and draws a disgusting gelatinous line up the charred skin of your wing. You wince at the feeling and grit your teeth. If you were full-size you could take this pathetic demon no problem. But you _aren’t_. You need to be smart about this. 

The demon seems to be taking its time working its way down your wing, mumbling something about “barbecue,” which, while disturbing, works to your advantage. Based on the crazed look in this thing’s eyes it isn’t going to be a smart fighter, maybe if you can just get a solid hit in, you can make a break for it…

You tighten your grip on your makeshift weapon and tense the muscles in your shoulders.

The now-drooling demon slackens its hold on your wing as it bends down towards your head, slimy black tongue extending closer to your neck.

In one smooth motion, you rock your weight back onto your shoulders and kick your feet over your head and into the demon’s lowered face. At the same time, you twist your wing out of its loose grip, gritting your teeth against the shooting pain in your wing tip. 

Your talons rake down the demons forehead and send it reeling backwards, and with your momentum, you land in a crouch, facing away from your attacker. 

Wasting no time, you tuck your injured wing in close and make a break for the city skyline, but you don’t make it two steps before a clawed hand wraps around your ankle and sends you sprawling.

Without thinking, you twist to your left and scissor your free leg into the demons wrist. You’re not sure, but you think you can feel the bones crack, and the hand disappears from your ankle. You spring forward into a crouch and hold your weapon out in front of you defensively as the purple demon cradles its ruined hand to its chest. 

“Pathetic child of Lucifer,” You spit with as much venom as you can muster, “You should run and nurse your wounds while you can, next time I will not be so merciful.” Your voice is quiet but clear, and the demons eyes immediately narrow at the implication.

“Pathetic? You _bitch_ , you broke my hand.” The demon shrieks, “I’ll skin your tiny bitch body alive.”

You rotate slightly, cocking your head so you can maintain a sense of the fights around you. So far, no other demon seems to have caught on to your presence. You need to end this quickly and without any blood loss on your part. You don’t have time to be dealing with some two-bit demon in the middle of a blood soaked wasteland. 

“I may be **fallen** , but I am more than powerful enough to kill the likes of you.” You hum, attempting to maintain composure while you plan an exit strategy.

“I’ll tear your heart out and eat it. Be good and I might even make it nice for you.” The demon’s face contorts into something like a leer as its eyes rake up and down your body. 

It would make it “nice” for you? What does that even mean? It certainly isn’t implying it would kill you quickly, not if it plans to rip your heart from your chest. 

_What an idiotic creature_.

You try one last time to appeal to reason, as you circle to the demons right side keeping its injured right hand between you and the rest of its hulking body.

“I’m having a _hell_ of a day, demon. This is your final warning.” _Was that another pun?_ You don’t dwell on it, and instead raise your weapon. 

With a roar, the demon charges you. Head-on. Predictably. 

With a slight step to the right and a graceful swing of your sword-arm, you hook your weapon under the demon’s right elbow and lever its arm up and away from you while the sharp point of the tusk digs into its back. Its balance shifted, the demon crashes hard on its left side, bleeding from its back and a fresh gash under its right bicep. 

Standing back, you twirl the tusk in your grip, getting a sense for its weight, and wait for the demon to regain its footing and make a second attack.

When it reels to face you, you step to the left, again keeping its injured right arm closest to you. You know you have to keep your small size in mind, you can’t overpower this thing. You need to use its momentum against it, and focus on hitting its damaged arm before you go in for a finishing blow. 

You aren’t fully aware of it, but as you fight your world narrows, focuses to a pinpoint. With every new charge, your instincts keep you on the demon’s right, and your training takes over your movements. Even in an unfamiliar body, the rhythm of battle is strong, and you can feel Gabriel’s drum in every beat of your heart, in every swing of your weapon. 

Your feet don’t tangle or trip themselves, your charred wings extend just enough to maintain your balance as you spin out of the way of the demon’s grasp. It’s beautiful.

Before you know what’s happening, that manic laugh is back on your lips, the feeling of falling full in your chest again, and the demon’s right arm is hanging on by just a thin rope of muscle. 

_Poetry in motion_ , once again. You can’t help but laugh in this demon’s face. 

Enraged, the beast makes one final charge for you. A clumsy, hate-fueled charge, it’s easy to dodge, and it takes only a singly delicate swing of your weapon to sever the demon’s Achilles tendon and send it, crippled, into the sand. 

Walking up to its heaving form, you can see that it is still trying to stand, the unhinged look in its eyes burning with an endless hunger, a need to kill, to consume. Within you is a grain of pity, this demon knows no other existence. It saddens you, but this creature made its choice, had its chance. 

Raising your weapon, you murmur, “I warned you.” Before bringing the tusk down to pierce its temple. Immediately the demon goes slack. 

You know it’s not _really_ dead, that you lack to tools to kill this thing, and that if it wakes up before being consumed by the other creatures it will live on, but you can’t help but feel a strange unease coiling inside you.

It’s something you haven’t felt in centuries, not since the last extermination, not since you had last seen hell, but it’s familiar all the same. It’s that tiny piece of doubt, that part of you that wonders just what it was that condemned this demon to its fate. What tiny infraction may have cast this soul into damnation. 

You shake your head. This particular demon likely doesn’t bear thinking about. You tell yourself that it made its choice to fight, and then brace your foot on its bleeding head to wrench out your tool. 

Looking around, you see that the battle has thinned significantly, and that the closest brawl is now some 10 meters away. Eagerly you turn back to the city skyline, and find the path ahead a mostly clear tract of dark sand. 

Tucking your broken wing into your spine, you tighten your grip on your weapon. _Almost there_.

You don’t look back on the demon you have slain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Guys! This chapter is a bit longer, since I didn’t want to split up the action more than I have to, plus, I think people will eventually get sick of constant wall-to-wall fighting, so I’m going to keep this one as one whole piece. Next chapter will also have some action, but then it’s on to the Happy Hotel! Things will slow down a bit after that, so if you’re an action junkie like I am, enjoy it while it lasts!  
> The robe made it to this chapter! Huzzah! But there’s not too much of it left, and I can only imagine how bad it smells. Still accepting bets on its lifespan, but don’t underestimate angelic textile work. Shit’s tough.  
> Anyways, we got some more physical description of our angel in this chapter, If it wasn’t clear, they have both hair and feathers, I picture their feathers as running down their neck in the front towards their collarbone and down their spine in the back to connect with their wings. More details to come.  
> A quick note on the day/night cycle of hell. Based on the show, I think there’s a black sun with a red pentagram, and then a larger red pentagram that covers the majority of the sky. In my head cannon, this “sun” follows regular day/night cycle, while the large red pentagram in the sky is always visible, but dims and brightens on a day/night cycle. I saw a theory on the Hazbin reddit page recently that suggested that the big pentagram was a seal to prevent the demons from escaping, which I LOVE, so I’m running with that for now.  
> Also, some notes on demon death. As I understand it, the only real way to kill a demon is with a Valiant weapon, and everything else is something a demon will eventually come back from. However, knowing Alastor is a cannibal and that other demons probably are too, I started wondering about what the rules were if you got eaten by, say, a big mob of tiny red demons? Would your individual pieces come back together eventually? Needless to say this train of thought hurt my brain, so I decided that a demon can die if killed by a Valiant weapon or if consumed, and a consumed demon can either be released into the void, or kept as a slave to the consumer (if they are powerful enough). My head cannon is that Alastor has collected a lot of souls this way, enslaving through eating. Hell really is the place for a cannibal huh?  
> Finally, I would love any feedback on the fight scene. It was fun to write, but I’m not sure if it was clear from a reader perspective, any and all thoughts are appreciated! Our angel is a bit of a badass, and a bit of a maniac, but aren't we all a little mad here?  
> Thank you!


	7. The Antipathies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You make your way into Pentagram City, but its hardly a safe haven...
> 
> Trigger warning for this chapter: Implied reference to rape/non-con

Chapter 6: The Antipathies

Trigger warning: Implied reference to rape/non-con in this chapter, non-explicit.

* * *

The city is an unsightly thing, fluorescent and neon and burning an unnatural blue across the muddy red skyline. Just looking at it sets your head throbbing again, even before the dark sand under your feet transitions to uneven pavement. 

Hell certainly had changed quite a bit since your last visit. Things didn’t used to be so metropolitan…at least you don’t think they were. You didn’t spend long in the 9th Choir anyway, most of your younger years were spent as an Archangel, the 8th Choir, and you avoided cleanses when possible. They always gave you that strange feeling in your soul, that unease. Even before you started asking questions you had been a bit of an outcast in that sense, preferring domestic work, and eventually, work on earth with the 4th choir. 

At least your combat skills haven’t dulled. Realistically you know all angels are born combatants, but it is still immensely comforting to know that your basic instincts are still your own, even when everything else has been stripped from you. 

It doesn’t take long walking on the concrete for you to start leaving bloody footprints. The surface is jagged and completely shattered in places, and as you stick to the back alleys and darkened side streets, the pavement only becomes worse. 

Strangely, the city seems to be both cooler and uncomfortably hot in comparison to the wasteland. The air sits cold, but increasingly stagnant, prickling at the beads of sweat forming along your brow. The pavement itself feels almost scalding, making you shift uncomfortably from foot to foot every time you stop to peer around the crumbling side of an abandoned building. 

You know your bloody footprints are like a beacon pointing straight to you, but you don’t have any more scraps of robe to spare to try and wrap your feet. All you can do is grip your tusk and keep moving, hoping that this section of the city really is as abandoned as it seems to be. 

The buildings around you slouch brokenly, their ancient foundations crumbling and leaving gaping holes in their exposed walls. Ahead of you, you can see the tops of much taller buildings lit in garish colors, but the section you are in seems much less…embellished. 

And much less occupied; you haven’t seen a single soul since you crossed the first busy overpass, skirting under the concrete pylons and avoiding the grimy demons camping out in the dim glare of the passing cars. 

But despite this, you can’t shake the sensation that you are being watched, and no matter how you press yourself into corners and creep through shadows, the feathers on your spine refuse to lay flat. This area looks empty, but something primal is telling you it _isn’t_ , and that every invitingly dark doorway would be a death sentence were you to stop and rest.

So you keep walking, keep sticking to the shadows. You hope that entering a _slightly_ more populated area will allow you to blend in, maybe hide amongst the trash like the demons by the overpass had done, keep a low profile. You know you can’t stay here, wherever you are is already occupied by something smart enough to stay hidden. 

Occasionally you can hear the slight rustling of papers, or the shifting of stones, although every time you turn to look for the source of these small sounds, you can see nothing in the swimming shadows of the crumbling city scape. Across the darkness the faint scent of rotting fish wafts towards you. 

Picking up your pace, you break into a low trot, talons clicking obnoxiously on the paved street, weapon held tightly to your chest. You take random corners as they appear, heading generally in the direction of the searing neon signs advertising various vices, “SEX” “NARCOTICS” “CLUBS.”

Crowds of intoxicated demons aren’t ideal, but whatever is lurking behind you is setting your skin crawling, and you decide that taking your chance with a group is better than being jumped by a mob of hungry demons in an alley. 

Almost at a run now, you make a hard right around a tall brick-sided building and find the alley opening up into a bustling street filled with dozens of demons in all manner of glittering obnoxious dress. 

You don’t slow your pace until you are at the alley’s mouth, and then do your best to control your breathing and press your wings to your back before walking casually out and into the mixing crowd. 

A red sign above your head flashes in stylized letters “PENTAGRAM STRIP”

You know you stand out, and the well-dressed towering demon’s above you seem to be giving you a wide berth and a healthy share of disgusted looks. A few even shout insults about your filthy appearance, but you keep your head down and don’t stop, weaving in and out of the crowd and trying not to bump into anyone. 

_At least it doesn’t seem like they can smell you_. The street is choked with thick perfume and noxious smoke, and your tattered robe is still well soaked in demon blood, the combination appears to be doing a fair job of camouflaging your bleeding feet. 

You keep weaving in between traffic, following the general flow of people and slowly crossing the wide boulevard before you see a dimly lit alley opening up to your right. 

Glancing briefly back from where you came, you don’t see any slitted eyes or obscured faces looking your way. It looks like you’ve lost whoever or whatever was following you.

You duck down even further and dart between the long strides of a tall bird demon, brushing his coat with your curved horns as you dodge his knees and slip into the alleyway. 

Up ahead and to the right you see a backlit vending machine sporting turquoise patterns and the generic label “DRUGS.”

Enlightening. 

But the vending machine _is_ a good bit taller than you and set back a ways from either end of the alley, so you waste no time scurrying into its shadow and collapsing against the grimy wall.

Breathing raggedly, you inspect your feet and decide that the damage is mostly superficial. Your new skin is delicate everywhere, even the scales covering your feet are flimsy, you really can’t be surprised that they had shredded the moment they touched concrete. 

Deciding that covering bleeding wounds is your top priority, you untie the rags from your palms, peeling them away from the scabbing blood with some difficulty and instead wrapping your taloned feet. Your hands look disgusting, but well on the way to healing, although you can’t tell if they too will scar like your leg seems to be. 

Scars would certainly take some getting used to. You wonder if your mobility or sensation will be impaired. You had heard once in a human anatomy seminar that scar tissue could cause complications for humans, you have no idea how similar or different your new anatomy may be. 

Your feet somewhat acceptably wrapped, you pull your knees up into your robe and lean your head back against the alley wall. Something wet and cold seeps into your hair but you really can’t muster up the energy to look and see what it is, and your wings keep you mostly insulated from the cold stone. This is the first chance you’ve had to really sleep since you landed in this forsaken place, and you find that in the shadow of this vending machine, against the suspiciously moist wall of some back alley in Hell, you can no longer keep your eyes open.   
…

Your sleep is fitful, filled with dreams of blurred colors, unclear faces. The sweet smell of the free air, light and effervescent, fills your head. A soft golden light encases your body. There are hands touching you, soft hands, angelic hands, and a melodic voice reading words you can quite hear.

It’s beautiful, but it’s also wrong somehow. Just below the surface there’s pain, there’s fear, you open your mouth to speak and find that your voice is gone.

The melodic speech around you rises in pitch, the words trembling with meaning, with accusation.

You want to fight back, to say no, to defend yourself, but the hands are already carrying you, carrying you to where the light ends and there is only darkness.

And then you’re **falling**.

…

You launch into consciousness with all your senses screaming, your fight or flight kicked into high gear, and before your eyes are even open you throw yourself to your left, avoiding a danger you haven’t yet consciously registered. 

_Duck_ , your instincts tell you, so you duck.

Above you, the concrete explodes as something smashes into the wall where your head had been seconds before, raining tiny chunks of moist rubble. Now embedded in the alley wall is what looks like a large hammer, held by a sickly gray-ish hand on an arm chorded with muscle, and then a leering face and two bulbous, unintelligent black eyes. 

Without thinking, you extend one leg behind the demon’s ankle and the other you plant just below its knee. With a sudden twist of your hips, you sweep the demons ankle out and lever its leg, knocking it flat on its back and sending its hammer skittering across the concrete. 

_Attack_ , the angel in you yells, and like clockwork you raise your left leg and bring it down hard and fast into the demon’s knee with a sickening pop. Its knee dislocated, the demon’s bulging eyes stare at you in dull confusion, like it hasn’t even registered what has happened, its long fan-shaped ears pressed flat to its skull and its gaping mouth opening and closing in silence. You feel a that kernel of unease again, coiling in your gut in the face of this stupid, inept creature. Had it know what you were when it attacked you? Had it known what you could do?

You hesitate for only a moment, tusk raised above your head for a killing blow.

Had this demon known what awaited it in hell when it sinned?

But, no. You have to protect yourself, you don’t have the luxury of mercy right now. 

You tense your arm and bring your weapon down.

 _Behind you!_ Your instincts warn you, too late.

You feel a massive weight connect with your ribcage, lifting you bodily into the air and sending you skidding down the alley, away from the fallen demon. 

Your ribs crunch as you connect with a trash can, and your head swims as it rebounds off the broken concrete. The smell of rotting fish is back, all around you, much stronger now.

You grunt with pain, _more than one,_ obviously. How many had been following you earlier? Three? Four? You were stupid to fall asleep in some random alley knowing there were footprints leading _right_ to you, knowing there was a group stalking you just a few streets over. 

And now you had to fight with a broken rib. _Phenomenal_. You push yourself onto all fours and feel a concerning grating sensation in your chest. _Make that two ribs._

Raising your head slowly, waiting for your vision to clear, you can just make out four figures standing ahead of you in the alley, plus the one still on the ground who now appeared to be sitting up and staring stupidly at its dislocated knee. You feel a trickling sensation down the back of your neck, and when you raise a hand to it, it comes away bloody. 

Standing over the injured one, and looking at you with jaundice yellow eyes is a towering slender demon in a shredded jacket, swinging a sledgehammer in one hand. Over its shoulder you can just make out a thin blue fin, waving slightly in the stagnant air. The demon’s lower jaw protrudes grotesquely from its face, filled with a single row of long glass-like and needle sharp teeth. From your lowered position you can see the neon lights of the strip refracting through the teeth into rainbow patterns on the alleyway wall. 

The other three demons stand behind the first, just out of the beam of light cast by the vending machine. You can’t make out their features, but the overall aura of murderous cohesion tells you this was an organized attack. 

_Send in the weak one first_. They tried to distract you and it worked, and you probably just crippled some rookie. Your head throbs, sharp, behind your ear. 

“Aye _nena_ ,” The demon’s voice is guttural and strangely distorted by its distended lower jaw. “What is a _cosita_ like you doing in a place like this?”

Your vision is still swimming a bit, and you get the sense that your head is moving even though you know you are sitting still. You shake your head once to clear it, only to freeze as a biting pain shoots up your spine and a wave of nausea overtakes you. 

“Ooooh, _estas buena_. _Nena, ven aqui_ ,” the demon gestures towards you with its webbed hand, “Let your _papí_ make you feel better.”

That’s the second time today someone has offered to make you feel better while actively trying to kill you, you think sluggishly. Demons are…confusing like that. 

Losing focus, your eyes drift from the Demon to the wall behind it, still damp with some kind of urban grime. The light from the street behind the thugs sparkles off the uneven wet surface, combining with the strange rainbow effect created by the lead demon’s prism teeth. 

In spite of yourself, you can’t help the dopey smile that spreads out on your face. 

“ _Mira,_ ” one of the demons in the back of the crowd steps forward, a creepy grin spreading across its toothless mouth, its finned ears flaring out from its flat skull. “I don’t think she’s listening to you _jefe_.”

Lip twitching, the central demon steps forward to crouch down before you, making you giggle in the way the light dances across the ground towards you.

“Whatcha’ smiling at _puta_ ” the demon snarls as it lowers itself to your level.

 _Don’t let him get close to you_ part of you protests at his towering proximity, but a bigger part of you, grins and points at the demon’s teeth.

“Your teeth are pretty,” you singsong, waving your hand vaguely to the tiny rainbows dotting the alleyway. 

The demons face stiffens momentarily, before he relaxes and lets out a single loud barking laugh. You wince at the volume.

“Oh yeah?” It grumbles, and then your face is in the demon’s slimy webbed hand and its reeking fish finger is pushing up your lip to expose your canines. “Not as pretty as your teeth _nena_ , tiny little things, no? Can’t bite for nothing.”

The demons in the background laugh and whistle in a way that makes your skin crawl for reasons you can’t pin down. Your vision is still melting, fuzzy around the edges and intermittently bubbling with black dots. You need to…You need to get out of here, there is something you should be doing and these demons are—

The demon abruptly squeezes your lower jaw and forces your teeth apart, shoving its clammy thumb into your mouth. You gag on the overpowering taste of rancid fish and knock the demons hand away clumsily, dry heaving into the concrete. 

The demon stands and turns to its lackeys, slowly licking the moisture off its thumb with a flat gray tongue. 

“ _Delicioso,_ ” the demon chuckles low in its throat. 

Your head is screaming at you to get up and _move_ but you can’t seem to make the ground hold still. Gritting your teeth and closing your eyes in an attempt to shut out the sickening sense of movement, you manage to push yourself up onto one knee, and then into a swaying crouch, bracing your hands and trying desperately to keep your balance. 

The world arounds you muffles for a minute, your senses falling into a brief but infinite blackness. When you open your eyes again, the demons have moved to surround you in a broken semi-circle. 

“She’s still got a little fight in her, eh _manos_?” The guttural voice of the gray demon comes from your left. 

“ _Sí jefe,_ ” a grimy blue demon in front of you hisses. Its face is elongated into a kind of scaled snout. This demon is closer to your size, you think. Wincing again you try to push yourself to stand fully.

The demons on your right snicker and jeer, but you try to block them out and locate your weapon in the dim artificial light.

Where had you been when you had it last? Your vision darkens dangerously again, the corners of your eyes exploding into the dazzling rainbows reflected from the demon’s teeth, but you push through it.

You had it when you fell asleep, and by the vending machine, and then with that bug-eyed demon…

You catch a glimpse of a thick corpse-gray leg sticking out from the shadow of the vending machine, twisted awkwardly at the knee. You follow the leg up to a meaty torso, and then a clubbed hand. In it you see your tusk.

Focusing on that object clears your head slightly. You need to get to your weapon. 

“ _Angél_ ,” The blue demon in front of you steps forward, snapping your gaze up from where it was locked on the tusk. “Why don’t you give is a little taste, _no_?”

As the demon extends its hand to grab your arm, you move to step past it, ducking low and ramming your horns into its ribs. The impact rattles your brain and sends a shock down your spine and into your broken ribs, but you keep pressing forward. Your equilibrium reels, forcing you down onto all fours as the demon goes sprawling. You keep moving, scrambling with your hands to get upright. 

You get close, really close. It’s like one moment your hand is on the hilt of your weapon, ready to pull it from the stupid grasp of the injured fish, and the next your whole body is in the air and your back is slammed into the cheap plastic of the machine. You can feel the façade crack with another one of your ribs, driving a sharp point into your spine and pinning your wings down, but you’re more concerned with the rancid hot breath of the demon, its teeth pressing into the bottom of your chin and its hand around your neck. 

You don’t have enough breath to speak, but you do manage to spit an arc of bloody saliva across the demon’s face before you start to get lightheaded. 

“ _Mamapinga_!” the demon hisses, wiping the spit off its cheek with one swipe of its flat tongue. “You really shouldn’t have done that _puta,_ from now on you’re going to play nice while we have our fun.” The faces of the other demons over the shoulder of the one choking you begin to fade as your field of vision narrows.

“Nice and quiet, _sí_?” The demon’s voice distorts into something else, something more sinister, as it runs its free hand down the front of your robe. 

_Get to your weapon. Run._ Your mind screams as your hands scrabble uselessly at your neck, but your vision is darkening, your grip getting weaker.

The demon’s claw is poised at the knot on your robe, just over the pulse point below your collarbone. 

_Need to run._ You think feebly, as your arms go limp at your sides. 

“Hey, you boys mind moving your asses? You’re in between me and my fix, and I’m not feelin’ awfully patient tonight. “

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Hi again! Phew this chapter ended up a LOT longer than I thought it would, so I had to bump some stuff to the next slot, so there will be one more chapter (and possibly a flashback) before the Happy Hotel.  
> Any guesses on who has conveniently waltzed into the assault of our lovely angel?  
> Anyways, here’s a link to the map of pentagram city I used to orient this chapter:  
> https://twitter.com/fractialis/status/1212433676258160640  
> In my mental map, Wonderland where our MC fell is to the south south-west of the pentagram, or the lower left of the map. They crossed under bypass 13 and continued to walk northwest through the slums and abandoned section in the far south of the city before entering the lower point of the star. From there they entered the pentagram strip and moved north into the entertainment district and before stopping in their cozy little alleyway. Is this the alleyway with the vending machine from the show? Eh, probably not, but I figure the makers of the brilliantly named “drugs” machine probably have more than a few scattered around the *ahem* less savory parts of the city.  
> The gang we see in this chapter are fish demons! I loosely based these guys on a minor group from One Piece, if y’all have ever seen/read it. OP is my true muse, so I had to squeeze a small reference in for myself. In case you’re interested, here’s a link to the characters I sorta based these scumbags on, the Macro gang: https://scan-op.com/manga/one-piece/492/6  
> As to why the creepy fish gang is Puerto Rican, I don’t really have an answer for that one, I just know some Puerto Rican slang from high school and re-learning some of these words via google was a pretty good time. (also I thought brushing up on Spanish profanity would help me when Vaggie comes a-callin’) Absolutely no shade to Puerto Ricans, I just enjoy Spanish dialects.  
> Translations for those of you who are interested:  
> “Nena” is like calling someone “baby girl”. It can be cute or creepy depending on context.  
> “Cosita” is equivalent to calling a girl a “pretty little thing.”  
> “estas buena. Nena, ven aqui,” means, “you’re fine. Come here baby girl”  
> “mira” is like “hey” or “look”  
> “Jefe” means “boss”  
> “puta” is bitch  
> “delicioso” is delicious  
> “manos” is like “boys” or “bros”  
> “Angél” of course is “angel”  
> “mamapinga” is “cocksucker” This one was weird cause I’ve only ever heard it used in the male version which is “mamabicho” but google said there’s a feminized version so, the more you know.  
> Sorry for any awkward usage or misspellings for any Spanish speakers out there, I haven’t been really conversationally fluent in like five years so my Spanish is *very* rusty. I hope I did ok! Any comments or corrections are welcome as always <3


	8. The Lion and the Unicorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, just a reminder, all characters and settings belong to the wonderful Vivziepop!
> 
> An unlikely hero comes to your rescue, sort of...

Chapter 7: The Lion and the Unicorn

* * *

You gasp desperately trying to get air to your screaming lungs as the fish-demon drops you to the ground.

Some random demon has just stepped into the fray, you still have at least four other thugs to fight, your leg is burning, your hands seem to be bleeding again, your head is throbbing, and your ribs are making an awful crunching sound every time you breathe, but it’s the breathing itself that’s really throwing you for a loop. 

You need to breathe? Since when?

You’re decently sure demons don’t strictly need to breathe, at least not the ones composed of mortal souls, being dead and all.

Does this make you mortal? Surely not, given your healing. You are **fallen** not mortal.

So why breathe? Is this some sort of ironic punishment? You love humans so much now you have to _breathe_ like them?

An irrational anger blooms in you, a sort of righteous indignation. You know full well that now is _not_ the time to be thinking about this, but the pettiness of the issue only fans the flames of your wrath.

_Wrath is a sin_. You remind yourself dutifully, before immediately abandoning that thought in favor of wallowing in your anger. 

Your ribs don’t hurt so much when you’re angry. 

You cough and then spit a glob of blood onto the pavement before attempting to tune into the silent battle happening above you. 

Immediately in front of you are the legs of the glass-toothed demon. To its left are the other three fish demons, one clutching its side where you head-butted it. Slowly you swing your head to the right to take in the newcomer. 

All you see at first are a towering pair of black leather boots. It takes you a minute to realize that there must be a body connected to these massive shoes, and you have to crane your neck to actually get the full measure of this demon. 

You had thought the fish demon was tall—you really had—but this new demon makes it painfully obvious just how skewed your new perspective is. 

In corseted black leather dress that ends obscenely high up its thighs, fluffy white fur poking over the its protruding chest and fanning over a pair of fuchsia sunglasses, and with four arms covered in elbow-length pink gloves perching accusingly over the demons chest, this new creature _literally_ towers. You estimate it must come close to eight feet, nearly as tall as a 9th choir angel. 

Not only that but it seems supremely unfazed by the group in front of it, one eyebrow raised and stiletto boot _tap tap tapping_ on the bloody concrete. Maybe it’s the demon’s impeccable timing, but you’re impressed. 

“What is this, some kinda Mexican standoff or somethin’?” The new demon asks, and you catch a glint of gold in its wide mouth when it speaks. 

“¡ _Cállate Maricón_!” The lead demon growls, stepping up to the new demon despite barely reaching its fluffy white chest. “You should mind your own business.”

One of the demons to your left mutters something about not being Mexican, and the demon in the leather dress actually laughs. 

“I am minding my business” it sneers, running a hand through its immaculate pink-and-white hair, “And my business is in that machine behind you, so move it, tubby.”

The fish demon pauses and glances over its shoulder at the cracked front of the “DRUGS” machine before whirling back to the pink demon with slitted eyes.

“You think you can march in here and fuck with us _pendejo?”_ The fish demon gestures to you, still on all fours on the concrete, and jams one finger into the corseted chest of the taller demon. “This _puta_ is ours, _comprendes?”_

“Ok, one: I don’t fuck with _anyone_ for free, ya got that?” The pink demon grabs the finger shoved into its chest in a fist and yanks hard, snapping the digit, “And two: no one touches me without paying _first_ ya limp dick excuse for a bargain-bin thug”

The fish demon shouts in pain and falls to the ground cradling its broken finger as its lackeys jump in to attack the pink demon. Without looking, the pink demon smashes an elbow into the elongated shout of the nearest fish, before materializing a third set of arms and some kind of gun and opening fire on the other two. 

You can’t imagine where in that dress the demon had room for a gun, much less a third set of arms.

“I like it rough boys, so you’re going to need to do a lot better than that if you want to play with all this.” The pink demon cackles as it fires round after round into its attackers, pausing only to smash the butt of its gun into the temple of the kneeling gray demon, sending it face first to the ground. 

You are honestly losing the thread of this whole interaction. Not 60 seconds ago you were at the mercy of some fish demon, and now said demon is on the ground, possibly dead, courtesy of some insane fluffy spider…thing. Your head still hurts, and the pace of this evolving situation isn’t helping.

Deciding that you don’t want to wait and see if this new, much larger monster is friendly or not, you shift your attention to the demon you incapacitated earlier, who is still sitting dumbly to your right, against the side of the vending machine. 

Struggling to your feet, still wheezing for breath, you channel all of your righteous fury into wrenching your weapon away from the demon. Its bulbous eyes turn to you in what is quickly becoming trademark shock as you raise your weapon. 

And hesitate. _Again._

Had this demon even said a single word during this entire brawl?

It had tried to kill you. 

Then again you tried to kill it…

Sighing, you shift your grip on the tusk before ramming the blunt back end into the demon’s temple, copying the motion you had seen the spider demon use a moment before. 

_Close enough_ , you decide, and wheel around to face the chaos behind you.

Only to come face to face with the looming spider demon. 

You hadn’t even heard the gunfire stop. _You really hit your head hard back there_ , you think desperately, stepping back to bump into the vending machine with a yelp.

“Geeze toots, jumpy much?” the spider demon smiles revealing its single pointed gold tooth.

You raise your weapon in front of you, which the spider demon regards with a mix of casual interest and mild disgust

“Holy shit doll, is that a _tooth?_ Damn that’s hardcore, no wonder these bozos thought they needed a whole gangbang’s worth of thugs just to deal wit’ ya.” Up close, you can see the delicate pink spots freckling the demon’s hair and extending down its slender shoulders to blend with the fluffy tuft at its chest. Its oddly…beautiful. 

“Hey now toots, lookin’s for free but touchin’s gonna cost ya, capiche?” The spider demon breaks into a laugh that snaps your head up to stare at it with wide eyes. At your expression, the demon’s laugh trails off and eventually dies in a quiet sigh.

“That’s a joke kid, you’re supposed to laugh see? Look can ya just get outta the way, I’m jonesing something bad” The demon gestures vaguely towards your shoulder and you flinch, sidestepping its stilettoed boots to stand beside the bleeding bodies of the three fish demons. 

“Jesus babe you gotta be less twitchy,” the demon mutters, before ripping a chunk out of the cracked plastic machine face with three hands. Idly tossing the hunk of plastic behind itself, the demon reaches arm deep into the vending machine before pulling out an unlabeled bag of white powder. 

“And would you stop breathing like that?” the demon barks. You immediately snap your mouth shut. “Thank you, geeze. Look I love the commitment to the whole ‘little orphan Annie’ routine but babe no one is gonna go for you with the way you smell, even with ya tits out like they are.”

You can’t understand half of what this demon is saying, but you gather that it’s insulting your robe, which, while a fair criticism, seems unwarranted. You self-consciously adjust the strap of your ruined clothes and try to watch the demon’s motions over its shoulder. 

The spider tears open the top of the bag while it sticks its pinkie in its mouth. With practiced ease, the demon sticks its wet finger in the power and then pops it back in its mouth without spilling a grain. Immediately its smile relaxes and its pupils dilate, its head leaning back with a sigh of bliss. 

“That’s the stuff,” the spider keeps its eyes closed for a moment, before going in for another dip of powder, seeming to have completely forgotten your presence.

You stand in silence for a moment, before you decide to test your luck. 

“Thank you for saving me” you manage to whisper, though the effort makes your throat burn and your ribs protest. 

“Whazzat? Babe you’re gonna have to speak up if you want people to take you seriously.” The spider demon’s eyes don’t open as it speaks. 

“I said thank you, for saving me,” you repeat, slightly stronger this time.

The spider demon cackles, licking the powder from its pink-gloved hand.

“Save you? Yeah right bitch, those shitstains were between me and my drugs, you just happened to be smart enough to step aside.”

You frown at the spider’s logic. How very…demonic. But you can’t help but feel grateful, even if the rescue was incidental, which you doubt it was completely. After all, the spider could have just as easily killed you as well, and stepped over your body to the machine, right?

Your standards are becoming worryingly low.

Still, you feel the need to thank this demon somehow.

“Do demons have names?” You ask. 

You immediately know it’s a stupid question, of course they have names. But somehow the concept of connecting a name, a soul, an identity to a monster you just watched gun down four bloodthirsty demons is…its strange. And intimidating. 

The spider laughs again, tipping a pile of the powder onto the back of its hand. 

“Yeah babe, ‘course we have names, what kinda stupid question is that, you gotta name dontcha?”

“What’s—” you wince as the spider snorts a line of power off of its hand, you didn’t even realize it had a nose. Can it not smell you? Or is it just too drugged up to notice? 

“Um, what’s your name?”

The spider looks at you sideways, its eyes narrowing slightly before scanning you once up and down. It finally shrugs and tosses the now empty bag to the ground.

“Angel Dust, babe. The one and only,” One hand floating to its chin to strike a pose. 

Hesitating, you extend your hand to the demon…to Angel Dust. 

“Thank you for saving me, Angel Dust,” you say, your hand shaking slightly. 

Angel Dust looks down at your bleeding palm and snorts.

“I ain’t touching that hand babe, it’s disgusting. And I already told ya, I didn’t save you, I saved myself from being sober, so quit thanking me its creepin’ me out.”

You withdraw your hand slowly, but the look on its…his face tells you that he isn’t really offended, maybe just…embarrassed?

Idly, your eyes focus on a slight motion behind Angel Dust’s lower set of shoulders, your periphery registers something coming towards the two of you.

_Dodge_ your instincts scream. 

But you don’t dodge, instead you reach out and shove Angel Dust to your right, straight into the vending machine.

“Hey! What the fuck was that for?” Angel screeches as he collides with the machine. 

In front of you is the fish demon, the one with the glass teeth. Angel’s hit with the butt of his gun must not have killed it, it must have just been knocked out for a second.

You don’t even register swinging your tusk before its buried in the demon’s eye socket, spraying rancid blood onto your arm and across the ground.

Angel shrieks and yanks his boot out of the splash area, the rest of his outfit still somehow pristine. 

The fish demon slumps to the ground, taking your weapon with it and leaving you standing. 

Angel Dust breathes out a long whistle as the fish’s head _slaps_ against the concrete. 

“Hol-ly shit toots nice save. You really know how to pick ‘em, who the fuck was—” Angel’s voice cuts off abruptly as he walks around to face you, his face goes white ( _white, that’s funny, since his fur is already white_ ) as he stares at your stomach.

Following his eyes, you look down and see something sticking out from your abdomen, a slow red stain spreading out from where it pierces through your tattered robe. _Your poor robe_. 

Curious, you grip the things handle and pull it from your body in one smooth motion

“Fuck! Don’t rip it out!” Angel extends a hand, but stops short of actually touching you. 

_Strange._

You finally look down at the thing in your hand. 

It’s beautiful. A long silver grip culminating in a lethally sharp spear head. Even in a dusky alley in the middle of the night who-knows-where in Hell, the weapon seems to glow with its own pure white light. 

A Valliant spear. Broken in the middle of its handle, but still perfectly, cruelly sharp where it matters. 

Where had this demon gotten a Valliant spear? And more importantly, how?

Did the new generation of angels just leave these things lying around after exterminations for any low-rent criminal to pick up?

Didn’t they know that these were precious, that they could be taken away at a moments notice?

You sway on your feet before falling heavily to the ground. Your ribs ache, but the feeling is duller now, less urgent, quieter. 

Angel follows, crouching in front of you, hands hovering awkwardly. 

“Fuck. Shit. Kid that thing’s Angelic, you’re dead. Holy shit that fish fuck just killed you.” You think Angel is being a bit dramatic. 

You look down at your torso again, and notice that a very impressive amount of blood is running out from under your robe and spreading across the alleyway floor. 

_Are_ you dying?

You don’t think you are, Valliant weapons aren’t made to kill angels after all.

But then again…

The wound doesn’t _feel_ too deep.

Setting the spear down, you yank the knot loose on your robe and pull it off of yourself completely to start folding it into a pad.

“What the hell, you nutty broad! This ain’t no time to get naked, which isn’t something I usually say, but this is _really_ not the time!”

“I’m putting pressure on it,” you say quietly, pressing the folded robe into the wound and holding it there. 

“Fuckin’ why? Did you not hear me say that shit was Angelic? You. Are. Dead. Double Dead. Toast. Gonzo—”

You reach out and grab one of Angel’s many arms and press it into the cloth.

“Hold this,”

Angel winces, but lets you move his hand. His eyes don’t leave the wound.

“Why?” he asks, staring at the blood quickly soaking through the cloth.

“Because I am going to pass out soon,” you answer, leaning back on your elbows and closing your eyes, struggling to stay conscious.

“No, I mean… _why_?” Angel doesn’t look at you, but you can see his perfect forehead creasing even through his fluffy hair.

_Oh._

You laugh, though it sounds more like a rattling wheeze. You think maybe one of your ribs has punctured a lung. 

_Why indeed._

“I made a choice.” You say simply, allowing your head to fall back onto the wet concrete.

“A pretty fucking stupid choice” Angel whispers.

You laugh again, quieter this time, and cough thickly. 

“That’s the trouble with choices,” you say as you slip into unconsciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Another long chapter. How many “long” chapters do I have to write before they just become regular chapters? Let’s hope I can keep this up when we get to the fluff.  
> Well guys, we did it, that’s it for the action heavy sections. Things will be slowing down a bit from here on, and I hope to take some time to establish just how our angel found her way into this predicament, and explore a little more about her motivations, as well as her new body!  
> Quick translation notes:  
> Callaté = shut up  
> Maricón = a homophobic slur specific to gay men. (I’m not sure where the line is for using slurs in fiction like this, I think its ok if it makes sense for the character? But I could be very wrong here, let me know if I am)  
> Comprendes? = Do you understand?  
> Thoughts on the multiple languages? I know Angel is Italian and my mom speaks Italian, I think she would love a phone call to ask for all the Italian slurs lol, so if you guys enjoy this kind of thing I would be happy to keep it up.  
> Speaking of, I hope you all enjoyed the appearance of Angel Dust in this chapter! I had a little trouble writing him, as his speech patterns are pretty unique, but it was a lot of fun. I also had an interesting time playing around with pronouns as our MC shifts from viewing Angel as just another “monster” (“it” pronouns) to an individual (“he” pronouns). I think our angel struggles to individualize demons, even though they generally have compassion for demonic suffering. I hope it came across well and wasn’t too confusing.  
> I also had some trouble deciding how Angel Dust would react to having his life saved. At first I thought he would get angry and berate the MC, but that felt a little cruel, even for Angel. I don’t want to make Angel into a total softie or anything, but I think even he might be thrown if some random *demon* saved his life and then was totally chill about it. To me, Angel is the most vulnerable when he lacks control, and this situation particularly disarms him (get it? Cause he has so many arms? Ha ha). Feel free to let me know how you all feel about my characterization!  
> Oh and before I forget, here’s a link to the outfit Angel is wearing in this chapter. It’s the dress ensemble from the “Addict” music video: https://www.reddit.com/r/HazbinHotel/comments/ht9j6h/addict_angel_dust/  
> Check out the reddit user page for more amazing Angel Dust art <3  
> See you all soon!


	9. I Know Who I Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phew, sorry for the delay on this chapter guys. I have everything moved into my new place, but I still need to unpack, so I can't promise my upload schedule will be perfect for the next few days, but bear with me :). 
> 
> In this chapter you remember pieces of your first assignment on earth, and your first failure...
> 
> Trigger warning for implied reference to sexual assault of a minor in a religious setting. 
> 
> All characters/settings/Hazbin Hotel belongs to Vivziepop!!

Chapter 8: I Know Who I Was

Trigger warning: Implied reference to sexual assault of a minor in a religious setting. 

* * *

You’re floating, soaring through the cool dark air on outstretched wings. The air currents lift you, carrying you as though you weigh nothing. You don’t have to flap, don’t have to think. Its bliss. You close your eyes and enjoy the sensation.

Dimly, over the quiet rushing of air in your ears, you hear jumbled voices. They come to you in pieces, carried on the wind like leaves. You struggle to hear them clearly.

“…Angel what happened?”

_Angel_? Your brow creases as you try to find the conversation through the wind.

“…already told you I just happened to find her bleedin’, I figured maybe you two could…”

You lose the sound again. You want to open your eyes, to fly closer to the noise. But you’re so comfortable where you are, so safe.

“’Bleeding’? Angel she’s practically dead, how the hell did you just ‘happen’ to find someone…”

More snatches of speech drift towards you, they sound worried, concerned, you want to help, to calm them, to guide them, but you can’t make out the details. 

“Hey isn’t this what you two wanted? Isn’t helping people like a redeeming quality? I’m just trying to do what you said you…”

“…a good thing you did, Angel…Vaggie, help me carry her…”

“She looks awful…is all of this blood hers?”

“She _smells_ awful if ya ask me, just let her sleep it off or somethin’…”

“… _pendejo…”_

“…I don’t know…her stomach…terrible…”

The wind jostles you slightly as you hit a warmer upwelling draft. The breeze is pleasant, it ruffles the coverlet feathers on the underside of your wings. In the wind, the voices are quieter, too quiet to hear, so you allow yourself to be swept away. 

…

You tuck your wings in close to your body, ducking your head slightly and tilting into a dive through the warm evening sky. Below you, you can see the soft lights of a town, radiating in crescents from a large central building. 

After what felt like an eternity of working in Heaven, assisting new 9th choir recruits, minding the angelic children as they learned right from wrong, the feeling of air under your wings again is truly divine. Heaven is beautiful, of course, but there is so little open space, and fly permits are so hard to get these days. 

Nearing your target, you slowly ease up your dive and extend your wings, leveling out into large wheeling circles. From the stone building below you, you can hear the faint sounds of music, a rising tangle of human voices backed by some kind of string instrument. _Quite lovely._

Widening your circles, you glance in sideways through the colorful glass windows at the gathered humans below, their eyes closed and heads raised as they sing. 

You smile. You have always been a fan of music, human music especially always struck you as so complex and exotic, nothing like the staccato war drums and long single-note choirs of heaven. 

You come in for a silent landing on the peak of the building, crouching down on the eaves and resting your hands on your knees to listen to the chorus of sounds. 

Your first real assignment on earth. Your first _independent_ assignment on earth. Pride wells up in you just thinking about it. Your ascension had been glorious, your service with the Archangels was “exemplary,” and the regiments you trained had the “lowest death rates by a wide margin” in the most recent cleansing. Training the 9th choir had been tedious, but it was all worth it for your ascension into the 4th Choir, the Dominions. 

And after your rotation in the domestic circles of heaven, you are finally moving on to earth assignment. Interacting with religious leaders, guiding the faith of the mortals, ensuring the proper teachings are passed on. Here you can make a difference, here you can save souls, here you can judge for yourself the actions of mortals. 

That knot of tension in your heart that had sat, festering, for decades even after you left the extermination squads, you can finally feel it loosening, your worries and doubts being lifted up and away by the singing humans below. _This_ is where you’re meant to be, you are certain. 

Before long, the voices from within the stone temple quiet, and the humans begin to file out of the building, chatting and smiling to one another, before breaking off into smaller groups and dispersing into the town. 

Silent and unseen, you move through the draining crowd and into the building. 

Your first impression is phenomenal. The decorations are beautiful, glittering and catching the light, clearly meant to inspire in worshippers the appropriate awe of divinity. The creativity of humans in expressing their views of heaven is inspiring, and you find yourself smiling peacefully as you approach the head of the building. 

The leader, termed a **priest** you were told, stands behind a heavy wooden table, flipping through an engraved bible. 

Moving to stand behind him, you note that he seems to be marking passages, perhaps to read to the congregation at a later time. 

_Deference to established canon, excellent_. You make a mental note of this **priest’s** fastidiousness and move around the table to inspect the rest of the altar. 

_Maintaining cleanliness, appropriate respect paid to holy symbols, all positive signs._ You move through the preliminaries quickly, mentally tallying things as you go. This house of worship appears to be in excellent repair, and well within the established guidelines. 

And yet, even with the excellent presentation, you can’t help a certain sense of unease, of discomfort, worming its way into the back of your mind. Your wings are restless, flapping occasionally, and the feathers up your spine keep ruffling up rather than laying flat. For some reason you just can’t get comfortable here. 

_It’s as if the_ , you struggle to find the right word, rolling around several human languages in your mind before landing on one that fits, _gestalt is wrong._

_Candles?_ No, there are plenty of those, Michael’s general decree was that more candles were better when saving souls. 

_Crosses?_ Not that either, you see a big one of those in the back right against the wall.

_Raised pulpit?_ No again, an elevated speaking position for a religious leader was considered paramount, hierarchical religious relationships were crucial to priming a pious soul for heaven. 

Idly tapping your fingers along one of your horns, you meander back towards the **priest** , coming to stop just in front of his bent head. You’re at a loss, something isn’t quite right here, but you can’t place what it is. 

In an unorthodox move, you spread your wings and close your eyes to summon a visual of the **priest’s** soul, hoping for insight. Generally speaking, it’s considered somewhat outdated to analyze the souls of individuals, and training prescribes a more _wholistic_ approach to guiding religious leadership. 

_Leave the individual souls to the Guardian Angels_ , that’s what your Dominion training said, and yet you feel a need to pinpoint the source of this darkness, and since checking an individual soul isn’t strictly _disallowed_ , you decide to trust your judgement. 

Behind your eyes is an expansive darkness, and then, all at once, a burst of golden light. You register your feet leaving the floor of the church as you step into the space of this human’s soul. You look around yourself, although your physical eyes stay closed, inspecting, hunting for some flaw, some reason for this discomfort.

At first glance, this human’s soul is pure, his actions bubbling to the surface and betraying nothing but piety, charity, and only the smallest of sins enveloped by the holy light of repentance. No cause for concern.

Frowning, you sift deeper, sorting through the history of this human, his ambitions, his goals, before you finally encounter it. Buried deep in this human’s soul is a darkness, a black set of _desires_ , a moldering pit of sin locked in his heart. Horrified, you reach out to this intrusion, this desecration on this humans soul, searching for its origin, its nature.

Abruptly your head is filled with horrific images. Young eyes brimming with tears, soft crying, delicate new skin under the touch of a hand. 

Gasping, your eyes snap open and you fall to the ground, the angelic light that had been surrounding you shattering. The **priest** looks up, a startled look on his young face, his eyes darting around the empty church over your head. You don’t move from your position. 

This **priest** , how could he be harboring such twisted desires? You reel as a wave of nausea hits you, the human’s twisted fantasies dancing behind your eyes. 

You place a calming hand on your chest and slow your breathing, and eventually, the **priest** too seems to calm and return to his reading. 

_A desire is not a sin_ , you remind yourself, _only action can condemn a sinner to hell_. 

This **priest** is broken, you can feel. Broken somewhere deep, somewhere well hidden, and his pain is festering. But he had not yet acted on these urges, you can still save this man. His temple is pristine, you remind yourself. His actions pious, his teachings by all accounts appear sound. You can guide this man, guide his hand to good, there is no need for his dark desires to manifest. 

_We take a wholistic approach to religious guidance. Focus your efforts on the merits of the teachings and the knowledge of the whole, rather than on any one individual._

The teachings of your school discouraged this. You know that your efforts should be focused on the whole, the congregation.

But, you can’t help but ask, _can they drink safely from a tainted well?_

…

You are flying again, sifting gently through the clear night sky, moving through the air with no resistance, with no effort. _Poetry in motion,_ you think, a soft smile playing on your lips. 

Up through the air, again, voices float, piercing the silent bubble of your thoughts. 

“I need…bandages here…can you handle her feet?”

The voices are familiar, they keep drifting up into your sky, invading your peace. 

Annoyance blooms like a sharp tug in your ribs, oddly painful. You press your arm to your side to try and relieve the tension. 

“…broken on this side…her lung may be damaged…”

“Hey, I uh, thought you might want to borrow my sewing kit...ya’ know, the kid looked like she mighta’ needed stiches on her….”

You focus instead on the soft whisper of air past your head. Up high the air is thin, almost silent as you slip past it. Like gossamer, like the delicate feathers running down an angel’s neck, like the soft voices of a human choir. 

The voices fade, slipping away from you easily, unable to keep up.

…

You find yourself broadening your presence in this area, following humans home, to social gatherings, and then back to worship in an attempt to gauge the teachings of this single human. 

You listen to the conversations of the humans, and find that nearly all of them conform to your checklist. 

_Retention is high for worship, social pressures enforce pious behavior and public church attendance, repetition of teachings in domestic situations is within optimal range._

By your metrics, religious leadership in this town is strong. Sin is lower than the global average, and you can already pick out a few aging souls well on their way to ascension. Even talk about the **priest** himself is positive. Many humans extol his virtues, talk at length about his engagement with the public, his inspiring sermons. 

Overall your impression is good. Great, even. You even start to hope that maybe this **priest** would be able to overcome his sinful urges. 

The sermons you oversee are well within established canon, providing plenty of guidance to the souls below about how to get to heaven, how to behave, what to avoid.

In your guidance of the **priest** , you stick firmly to your manual, hoping the tested methods will succeed in maintaining his tenuous purity. You enter his dreams in symbolic forms, creating abstract scenes of the rapture, sensations of divine love, righteousness, and piety. You leave his bible open to strategic pages, guiding his sermons when they seem to wander.

And yet, you cannot not shake the feeling of unease you had felt that first night, nor can you forget the dark vision you had experienced within this man’s soul. You find yourself drifting farther and farther from the priest, spending more time in his parish, exploring the lives of the humans under your care.

Human trials fascinate you, every decision seems to be a struggle for them, the temptation to sin ever present, even in the smallest of actions. You suppose this must be Lucifer’s lasting influence over mankind, but you can’t help but admire the fortitude of these beings. In the face of temptation, of failure, of pain, they continue to live on, to strive for goodness, to pick themselves up even when they stray from the Path.

You become enamored, rooting for their successes, lamenting their losses as though they are your own. How can they continue in the face of such uncertainty? Though you don’t understand it, it fascinates you. 

Perhaps, in your fascination, you spend less time with your **priest**. Perhaps you spend some evenings following the children as they play in the snow, rather than overseeing he congregation. The gap is not large, and in the frame of your life it is less that a moment of lost focus, a second of indulgence. 

But the next time you step into the church, you immediately feel the change. Every feather down your spine stands on edge, your wings fluffing at the crawling sensation overtaking your skin. The space has become, tainted, horribly tainted somehow. 

Invisible to the humans, you dash down the nave, eyes darting over every person in the pews. Which one? Who could have possibly?

You freeze just a few rows from the front. The sensation nearly knocks you off your feet, it’s a complete wave of darkness, sadness, confusion.

In the middle of the row is a young male child, dressed immaculately in accordance with the local customs, sitting between two older humans, what you can only assume to be his parents. The feeling radiating off him is powerful, it’s a dark wave swallowing you.

You don’t even register your movement as before you find yourself kneeling in front of the boy, his eyes are fixed ahead of him, staring through you, his lips moving along to a hymn that rings hollow in your ears. 

_He’s hurt._

You extend a hand to cup the boy’s cheek, closing your eyes and allowing the tears to pour down your face. 

_He’s so hurt._ You can feel it, devastatingly.

You stand there motionless long after the service has ended, crying silently.

When you finally do move, you head to the **priest’s** house. 

You find him asleep at his desk, hunched over a tattered bible, a rosary clutched in his hand. The very picture of seminary piety.

You don’t even need to look to know that your **priest** has become a sinner. You can feel it in the very essence of your divinity, the fabric of your being knows it, rejects it.

_You’ve failed_

…

You’re floating again, wings painting the cool night air, in every direction the stars extend, glittering like ice chips in the inky darkness.

You blink a few times trying to orient yourself. Were you…had you been flying a minute ago? And where are you exactly?

The thoughts pool in your head like slush, sending an ache through the roof of your mouth and down into your chest. 

The voices whisper to you, through the silent night air, there is no other sound here.

“Charlie, her healing, it’s so fast…never seen any demon heal like this before…the bleeding has already stopped and it’s only been a few hours”

You furrow your brow, feeling the ghost of a pain in your stomach, and you extend one hand to stroke down the flat expanse of your chest, to the soft fabric of your robe where it lies over your torso. 

“Vaggie I… I think I might know what…seen something like this before…”

You don’t like these voices, they are too strained, too full of pain, of confusion, of fear. 

You are cold in this place, frozen to the core. But the cold is numbing, its quiet. You don’t hate the cold. It’s better than these voices with their hot pain.

Banking your wings slightly, you turn away from the sounds and allow yourself to drift off into the endless night sky. 

…

“Reassignment?” the Throne asks, mouth unmoving. The 3rd choir speak telepathically despite having mouths, and you find the effect far more intimidating that that of the Archangels, who speak through sewn lips. The lack of movement, of expression in the mouth, in combination with the veiled eyes, all works to make the Thrones seem distant and untouchable. 

The three Thrones under the Seraphim rotate administrative duties with the help of the 9th choir as workers, while the other 7 operate in purgatory, judging souls. This particular Throne is giving off an aura that makes you suspect that they prefer purgatory. 

You square your shoulders and adjust your wings nervously, trying to approximate where the Throne’s eyes would be behind their opaque veil.

“Yes, I would like to be moved to a new parish, I believe I am…” How can you say that you have failed? That the religious leader you were assigned to guard sinned under your watch? You can’t find the words to express your shame, so instead you say simply, “I am unable to guide this **priest**.”

“And the reason for your assessment?” The Throne asks, mouth completely still, betraying no emotion. You’re not even sure they are looking at you.

“I…” You hesitate again.

The Throne sighs. Or, seems to sigh. It’s difficult to say without the accompanying mouth movement, but its posture seems to soften to a degree, and it flips the pages in its hand. 

“It says here that this is your first independent guidance assignment on earth?” The Throne asks.

“Yes, that’s correct.” You tuck your wings and try to make yourself as small as possible.

“And that your assigned leader is a sinner, bound for hell?” The Throne states matter-of-factly, head tilting almost imperceptibly. 

You can’t hide your shock, and you can feel yourself stiffen. They already know? How had they received that report so quickly? Your request for reassignment had been immediate.

“I…yes, he is. I cannot guide the pious through the mouth of a sinner,” you say sadly, tucking your chin to your chest.

The Throne sets the sheaf of papers down on their desk, and you get the sensation that they are looking at you from beneath the veil.

“What is the sin rate of your congregation?” The Throne asks after a beat.

“My…I’m sorry?” You ask with a start.

“The sin rate of your congregation,” The Throne repeats through its closed mouth, “what is it?”

“It’s um…82%, 12% below the global average. A 67% mortal sin rate on the last report.” You scramble to pull up the numbers in your mind. 

“That’s excellent. So what is the issue?” The Throne’s voice echoing in your head betrays a degree of boredom.

“The issue?” You reel to catch up with their train of thought. “My chosen leader is a sinner, that…that makes their sermon hypocrisy. How can he save souls from within the chains of sin? His sin will spread, it will corrupt, how can I sanction this with my guidance?”

The Throne reshuffles your papers and puts them back into a folder, which they hand to a 9th choir angel standing to their left, before turning back to you.

“This is your first assignment, so I’ll reexplain your role, only this once. You are a Dominion, you follow the guidelines set out by the Seraphim to direct the teachings of the leader to which you are assigned.”

You nod along slowly.

“These teachings must accurately convey the rules governing the judgement of souls to the congregation. You strive to maximize the clarity and effectiveness of these teachings, to spread the Word.”

Again you nod. All of this is basic training.

“That is all.”

You tense, waiting for more. When nothing more comes you open your mouth to speak, but the Throne interrupts you.

“You don’t interfere, you don’t concern yourself with the sins of any individual. Leave such tasks for the Cherubim. The sins of your leader are irrelevant to your assignment. You spread the Word, you guide the Teaching, and you do this as long as there are redeemable souls within your reach, or for as long as your leader lives.”

“But my leader is…the **priest** is a purveyor of sin, I cannot simply—”

“Yes. You can. And you will.” The Thrones voice rings in your head, effectively severing your chain of thought.

“Next, please.” The Throne calls, and a small Archangel shuffles out of line behind you. 

Numbly you step aside and wander out of the pavilion. 

_Don’t interfere._

But how can you?

…

You’re freezing in this endless night. Chilled through and through. Even the air which covered you like a blanket is gone. You fly through silence. 

There had been voices here before, hadn’t there?

“H̵̫͔e̸͉̰͆̎̅͐l̵̥̩̯̄̏͘l̴̙͝o̵̰̠̖̗̓͌?” you shout into the darkness, your frozen tongue clumsy around the word.

One by one, the ice-chip stars in the distance wink out, slowly leaving you in a world of blackness, a bottomless pit. Your skeletal wings beat furiously in the airless void, trying desperately to take you somewhere, anywhere else.

“Ḥ̴̢̹̊̒̌̄e̶͇͑l̶̛̛͎̺̩̝̑͆l̷̬̇̐͜o̶͚̅͆͂,̷͖̜̩̳̑ ̶͓̼̮̠̎͐̐͛ḁ̷̹̈́́nỹ̴̞̤̇͠o̷̲͆̉̔̑n̶͓͔̱̩͆̐͝e?” You scream, but the sound dies on your lips. You have no breath to carry it. 

“ **K̷̹͍am̸̳͎̈́͒ȧ̶̻̰ȅ̸̟͂l̵͋͜** ,̴̣͛̚ ̴̖̻͝f̸͇̦͌o̷̢͂͝r̷̜͑ ̴̩̀̑y̸̭͉̅ō̵̦͌u̶̺̅͋ṟ̶̭̒̎ ̵̬̭͋c̸̤̝̍͘rim̵̬̻̐͌e̴̡̎̄s̵͕͚̊̕ ̴̫̒ã̶͎ga̴ͅͅin̵͙̣̓̾s̸̱͛t ̵̛͔̤ť̷̫̰͗h̵̳̯̎ȅ̵͈͈ ̵̧͍͂S̸͇̬͋er̶̩̺̅̓ap̵̥̫h̴̹̽ĭ̶̗͈m,̶̛̼̫͐ ̴̙̃́th̶͉̻̽e̴͎̯̿̾ ̵̛̰o̷̧̐̓r̶̗̉̽der ̶̳͗̈́o̸̦͗f̶͉̭̏ ̴̨̽̍Ȟ̶̟̣̽ea̵͓̔v̴͍̍͌ḙ̴͇̔͠n̸̻̬̚,a̸̗͇͂n̴̙̻̈́̈́d̷̘̤̀̈ ̷t̵̬̳͆h̵̖̻͗̔ę̵̪̃ ̷̧̮̓M̶͓̖̒ak̶̪̈́e̴̤̓̂r,̴̹̥͑ ̵̻̃ẙ̷̫̿ơ̸͍͔͗ṳ̶͔̌ ̶̺͝a̵͎̭̋rë̷̱͚́ ̵͗̈́h̵͔̲̏ȩ̵̩̕̚r̷eby̷͔̒̓ ̵̢̩̓s̵tri̵̺̳̋p̴̯̯͌͒p̴̱̓e̵͓̅̿d̵͌͜ ̵̳̱͝ō̸͉̱f ̵̟̬͐y̶̞̐͜o̷͖͒ǘ̷r ̴̧̮̀͗ṇ̸̥͐am̴̙̿e̵̘͔͠, ̸̣̍͝yő̶̺̘u̸̦̎r ̸̬͐͐ra̷͎̓nk̵̕, ̴̘̮̎͒a̴͓̿̌n̷̫͉̄d ̸̲̀͒y̴̤͓̓ô̴̦u̸̻̞̽r ̶̭̽͠d̵̽iv̵̘̋in̵̆̂ȉ̴̭ͅty̸̖͌.̸̭̆ **.̨̻̙͔̰͔̻͛́̃̆̾̈͘͜** ”

“Ṇ̸̘͆O̸̦̲̒!” you cry, feeling the Holy Flames beginning to lick at your skin, burning you with icy fire

“B̷̰̿̄ǔ̶̗rn ̵̩̝̿ã̶̦̓s ̴̡̫̾ẙ̷͙̃o̷̧̪͝u ̴̯͐ **ḟ̶̬̀ȁ̸̰l̶͙̽̓l** ,̷̮̱̅ t̴r̵ȧ̶̢í̴̱t̷o̴͎̊͠r̴̞̃.”

And you burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Welcome back once again, sorry for that much more somber chapter. I hope that glitchy text at the end was still legible, let me know if it's not  
> Ok so these chapters are getting real long lol. I think I’m going to stop shooting for length, and write chapters more for cohesion. It felt like a bad idea to split this chapter in half, since the whole thing is one continuous flashback and it all happens while our MC is out cold, and I think that’s probably the best way to do things. So in the future, if I churn out a very long chapter like this one, I’ll probably have a longer gap between chapters, rather than splitting the chapter in half and releasing it piece-meal. and since my schedule is wacky right now, that seems like an ok trade, does that work for you guys?  
> Dunno if you caught that at the end there, but we got a reveal of our Angel’s name: Kamael (pronounced like Camille, but like, if you had a southern accent). This name is stripped from them before their fall, so for all intents and purposes they are currently nameless. I would love to know if you all would prefer that they remain nameless as a reader insert, or that I give them some kind of nickname or other name, since they do trend more towards OC than classic reader insert. Let me know!  
> The name Kamael is an actual biblical name of one of the Dominions (which is one of the 9 orders of angels proposed by some guy in the 6th century). Turns out the expanded universe of biblical canon is really REALLY big, and also super interesting. I’ve read like half a dozen Wikipedia articles just in writing this fic lol. Anyways Kamael was known as the leader of the Powers (the next lowest order), which is why I gave our MC a backstory training other angels for battle before they get promoted to their current position in the 4th choir. Cool stuff.   
> Here’s a link to the (very short) Wikipedia article on angelic hierarchies, if you happen to be interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_angels  
> Oh, and a fun little link to some stuff about bird wing shape, since I talked about “coverlet” feathers in this chapter. I think out angel has “high speed” type wings, optimized for quick diving: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/95835/could-you-make-bat-wings-shaped-like-the-different-kinds-of-bird-wings   
> On a serious note, I hope I was respectful in my treatment of the priest and his abuse of a young boy. I didn’t want to be explicit or anything, but I do think this story is going to trend towards criticism of organized religion, and it seemed disingenuous to just ignore all of the abuse that has gone on in the church. I hope my portrayal was as respectful as I can be.   
> Finally, I would really appreciate any and all questions you may have about the angelic hierarchy. If any of the structure is unclear, please let me know, so I know to include that info in later chapters! I don’t want anyone to be totally in the dark about heaven, but the weird bureaucratic structure in my brain may not translate perfectly onto paper, so don’t be afraid to ask if you’re confused!   
> Ok, phew. That’s all from me. I love you guys <3 Thank you so much for tuning in!


	10. Shaking; Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! My new place is awesome, I still have some small things to unpack but I'm basically all moved in, thank you all for your lovely comments and patience with my changing schedule. 
> 
> You wake up in a strange place, with some unexpected company...

Chapter 9: Shaking; Waking

* * *

Your return to consciousness is slow, a murky light behind your eyeballs that you finally register as the waking world. You can feel that you are lying down, a small weight pressing down on you. 

You try to place yourself, but the effort is like trying to catch feathers from the air, the closer you get to grasping them, the more easily they slip from your hands and float away from you. Just the effort sends a sharp bolt of pain from the base of your horns straight through your skull.

The brief pain opens the floodgates of your senses, and all at once you are aware of a horrible festering ache consuming your body. Your stomach feels like it’s on fire, and the pain shoots down into your spine and then radiates out, filling your whole body with a searing fire. Immediately your stomach muscles clench and writhe, as if trying to crawl away from the source of your pain, and you inhale sharply, trying to come to terms with this new sudden pain. 

Once, during your time as an Archangel, you had been training a group of particularly new 9th choir recruits. One angel, fumbling their lance during a drill, sent the thing sailing over the heads of the other rookies to pierce the top of your wing. The momentum had carried you backwards and actually stuck you to a stone wall, pinning you there until you pulled the lance out. You had congratulated the rookie on a powerful throw, and advised them to take care to aim the next time, before going to get your wound wrapped. 

At the time, that had been the worst pain you had ever felt, the only time you had ever been really _stabbed_ by a Valiant weapon. Angelic weapons are, naturally, not designed to kill angels, but they are nonetheless powerful, and the wound had taken days to heal fully. Even after the wound itself was gone and new feathers had grown in its place, the ache persisted, a dull pulsating pain in your bones for weeks after the incident. 

This new pain is so much worse than that, disorienting and frighteningly acute, you find yourself unable to even open your eyes. All you can do is focus on your breathing and try to force the tide back. 

You are peripherally aware of the hurried sound of movement from somewhere to your left, and then the sensation of someone’s breath across your face.

“Oh, you’re awake! Are you in pain?” a melodic voice asks.

You try to say yes, but the words stick in your dry throat and send you into a fit of coughing, each wracking motion sending a fresh jolt of pain through your abdomen. 

There is more movement, and then a cold glass is pressed against your lips and lukewarm water flows down your throat.

“Here, drink this. Can you talk?” The voice comes again, its anxiety is almost palpable.

You nod as your coughing subsides into a dull wheeze.

“Wha’…what happened?” You ask, finally getting your breathing under some degree of control. You crack a single eye open and try to understand the blurry scene in front of you.

You see an expanse of bed, white sheets pulled up over your body. You are indoors…you think, although everything is oddly red. Looming startlingly close to you is a stark white face. The features are blurry, but you can just make out two rosy cheeks and bright eyes.

_A Cherubim?_

You shut your eye again and immediately lean back onto your pillow, groaning slightly. 

“Well, you were injured…” The voice starts again. The Cherubim, you presume. 

Thank Michael you are in good hands. You have the strangest sensation that you haven’t seen another angel in ages, and just the knowledge of one next to you helps to dull the intensity of your pain. 

Wait, _injured_? How? When?

And more importantly, why does it hurt so much?

Remembering the phantom pains from your run-in with a Valiant lance, you wonder if maybe you took a bad landing into an armory rack or something absurd like that. You feel like your entire body was trampled by a thousand demons. 

And on top of that, something about the voice nags at you. It's sweet, musical, angelic even. But something about it wrong. It’s too…corporeal, to physical somehow.

To say nothing about the presence of a Cherubim in what you assume is the medical ward. Cherubim tend to keep to themselves, something of an outcast group ever since…well, everyone knows the story of the original **fall**. 

You wince, pain shooting through your head again, and a cool cloth is pressed to your forehead. 

“You shouldn’t move too much.”

You frown at the not-quite-right voice. 

You haven’t ever actually _spoken_ with a Cherubim personally, maybe this is how they all sound?

Your neck is killing you. You wonder if your neck feathers are molting, and you stiffly raise a hand from under the coarse sheets to touch your neck. 

_Feels normal._ But even a light touch aches. 

_What had happened?_ You strain to remember. There are pieces, sharp edged things scattered on the floor of your consciousness. You remember a feeling of fire, burning, and that sensation of falling. 

Just thinking about it hurts. Why does it hurt so much? You find your breathing speeding up again, and you extend your raised hand, groping for the hand of the angel at your bedside. You needed something to ground you. 

“Cherubim?” you ask weakly. 

From your side is a small gasp, and then, from farther away as if at the foot of your bed, a second voice cuts in.

“Charlie don’t let her touch you, we still don’t know…”

That voice, the gravel in it, the roughness, for some reason it sends your fight or flight instincts into overdrive. Before you even register what is happening, you are wide awake, springing upright in bed. Your left hand seizes the Cherubim by their slender wrist and yanks them behind you, your right raising defensively between you and the source of the voice. 

“Get behind me Cherubim.” You hiss, pain completely forgotten

The figure in front of you is unmistakable. The pale grayish purple skin, the long hair, single eye, and sharp teeth bared towards you. 

_A Demon_. How had it gotten here?

Desperately, you look around you for something to use as a weapon. Your eyes fall on a heavy wooden chair just to the left of the bed where you kneeling. Rolling sideways, you land on the floor in a crouch, seize the arm of the chair, and rip it clean off the frame, brandishing it in front of you like a club.

“Hey, I don’t think that’s really necessary—” The Cherubim from behind you tries to interject, but you ignore them. 

The Demon too has drawn a weapon. _A Valiant spear?_ Another angelic weapon in the hands of a demon. 

_Another?_ Dimly, your head pulses in pain. 

“ _Puta Madre_ ” The demon hisses, its eyes flicking between you and something just over your head. 

“Vaggie, hey let’s all just calm down for a minute,” there’s a hand on your shoulder that makes you flinch. 

_The Cherubim!_ You had almost forgotten. You turn your head slightly to check on the angel behind you.

What you see sends you reeling. The creature behind you is no angel, although its facial features bear a striking resemblance to those of a Cherubim. Its yellow eyes and sharp teeth, exposed by the gaping expression on its face, mark it as unmistakably demonic. 

Panicking, you grip the ruined chair in one hand and shove it towards the Cherubim-like demon, where it strikes it in the stomach with a satisfying _thud._ Then, kicking off of the wall next to you, you launch yourself over the bed and make a break for the door. 

The one-eyed demon beats you there however, brandishing its stolen spear in front of it.

Dodging a jab with the spear, you skid to a halt and back pedal until you collide with a low bedside table. You grab the thing in your hands and fling it towards the demon guarding the door as you press yourself into a corner and hold your improvised weapon in front of you. This demon is slightly shorter than you, maybe you can fight your way out of here?

The demon easily dodges your throw, the table smashing against the wall behind its head. The thing looks ready to skin you alive, you have to get out of here, you have to defend yourself, you have to—

“Vaggie, stop it!” the Cherubim-impersonator shouts from the corner. Its long blonde hair looks disheveled, spilling out from its loose tie, sleeves rolled up to the elbows and top buttons on its white shirt undone. “She’s just scared.”

The demon brandishing the spear looks between you, breathing heavily in the corner and gripping a splintered arm of a chair, and the demon on the far side of the bed, and seems to deflate slightly. 

“Charlie, she _attacked_ you!” The one eyed demon doesn’t lower it’s weapon, but it does run a hand through its long hair and sigh.

“Oh, come on it wasn’t _that_ bad” The other demon hedges, looking awkward. 

“Where am I?” You hiss, eyes narrowing, “Tell me Demons!”

The armed demon rolls its single eye and sighs. 

“ _Idiota_ , if you know we’re demons, then you know where you are.” The demon flips its spear up and rests it on one slender shoulder, cocking its hip and leaning against the door. 

“That’s impossible, why would I be—” You start to retort, before a realization hits you like a bad landing. 

_The trial. The sentence. The **fall**. Fighting for your life in a wasteland of demons._

“B̷̰̿̄ǔ̶̗rn ̵̩̝̿ã̶̦̓s ̴̡̫̾ẙ̷͙̃o̷̧̪͝u ̴̯͐ **ḟ̶̬̀ȁ̸̰l̶͙̽̓l** ,̷̮̱̅ t̴r̵ȧ̶̢í̴̱t̷o̴͎̊͠r̴̞̃.”

You really are in Hell. 

“Forsaken…” You whisper in shock, clamping your hands down over your head as though they can shut out the reality of your new world.

You sink down against the wall, knees curling into your chest, weapon falling from your hands. Tears stream, unnoticed, down your face.

“Hey—” That same almost-angelic voice starts. You can hear the demon approaching you, but you don’t have the energy to defend yourself. If they’re going to kill you here, so be it.

A soft hand lands on your shoulder, making you flinch violently. The hand pulls away for a moment, before returning with a lighter touch.

“Hey, its…well I’m not going to say its okay because you _are_ in Hell, but…well, we want to help you.”

“Help me?” You laugh ruefully, “you must know what I am? Why would you help me?” You raise your tear-streaked face to the demon crouching over you.

“Well, helping people is sort of what we do here.” The demon smiles in a way that makes her pink cheeks stand out. “And I happen to know a thing or two about **fallen** angels. Please let us help?”

The one-eyed demon walks slowly toward where you crouch, looking conflicted. The Cherubim-demon reaches a hand back to pull the other demon forward. 

“I’m Charlie, and this is Vaggie” Charlie smiles up at the other demon, Vaggie, before looking back at you expectantly.

“I—” you almost tell her your angelic name, before you realize that it, like everything else, has been stripped from you. You have no right to that name anymore. You don’t _want_ that name anymore. 

“I have no name.” You say, hardening your jaw and wiping the tears from your face with the back of one hand. You notice that your hand is bandaged, your tears soaking into the thin cotton.

“Did you…Did you heal me?” You ask, dumfounded, staring at your bandaged hand. 

Charlie smiles at you, much wider than before. 

“Yeah! Well, not exactly, we just bandaged you up, you healed pretty well on your own. Angel helped with the stiches.”

 _Angel._ You remember the tall pink demon from your fight in the alleyway. _Had he brought you here? You would have to thank him later._

“But my blood…you must have been able to smell it? It sent every other demon I met into a frenzy…” You trail off, looking between Charlie and Vaggie. Charlie just tilts her head, still smiling.

“Oh, well, Vaggie had to leave the room when things got really bloody, but that sort of thing doesn’t bother me. And I think maybe Angel was…um, a bit incapacitated to…notice.” Charlie looks sheepish.

“Thank you.” You say, really meaning it. Your eyes track up to Vaggie, who stands stiffly behind Charlie, her hands clenching and unclenching. “Um, is…Vaggie, ok?”

Charlie looks up at Vaggie, confused. 

“I’m fine, I just…I think she’s bleeding again” Vaggie says stiffly, swallowing hard. 

You look down over your bent knees, and notice that the cream carpet around you is slowly staining dark red. 

_Uh-oh._ Now that you think about it, you are getting rather light-headed.

You look back to Vaggie, who to your horror, actually licks her lips. Charlie, noticing the carpet, lets out a little gasp and starts hustling Vaggie towards the door.

“Shoot, it looks like you ripped your stitches. Vaggie, why don’t you go get Angel and his sewing kit?” Charlie looks _really_ concerned, making you wonder what exactly happened while you were asleep, and if you should be worried about finding bite marks anywhere. The thought makes you feel slightly sick, or maybe that’s the blood loss.

Charlie opens the heavy wood door with a yank and shoves Vaggie out into the hallway shouting “Imjustgoingtohelphercleanup” before slamming the door and, concerningly, locking it.

Charlie had said your blood didn’t bother her.

You aren’t entirely sure you trust that assessment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back!  
> I Hope you enjoyed this slower chapter. I did manage to sneak in a little action, but for the next few chapters, things are going to be very dialogue heavy as our angel settles in.  
> I know I have mentioned before just how powerful an angel’s blood is, and I think it smells like an irresistible meal, like, I dunno, a big steak would smell to a starving man. Most demons would react strongly to that smell, but Charlie is spared since she is half fallen angel herself. Angel on the other hand was just high off his rocker so I don’t think he noticed the smell lol. Poor Vaggie probably helped with the bandaging for as long as she could manage, but eventually the smell got too strong for her.  
> Also, a quick note on our angel’s strength. I would place her as stronger than an adult human man, but weaker than her original self. For reference, breaking a chair and throwing an end table are things I think a human in an adrenaline rush could do, but breaking the wooden post off a bed, not so much. As for the tooth, ivory tusks are stronger than bone, as far as I can tell no human could break one with their bare hands period. Raw strength scaling will be updated as we see other characters :)  
> So in the head canon, Lucifer was in the Cherubim class of angels, hence the pink cheeks that he passed on to Charlie. After Lucifer’s Fall, Cherubim’s became somewhat stigmatized for their independence, leading them to mix less and less with the rest of the angels, hence why our MC has never talked to one. The Cherubim are Michael’s least favorite choir.  
> And finally, next chapter will be making use of that gender identity tag, so be aware of that. We are finally going to get into the full extent of our Angel’s transformation!  
> See you guys next time! <3  
> 


	11. You’ve Lost Your Muchness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You make some shocking discoveries about your new body...
> 
> Trigger warning: This chapter deals with issues of Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria. This is not meant to be a realistic interpretation of these experience, this is purely fictional and does not reflect any real life people or experiences

Chapter 10: You’ve Lost Your Muchness

Trigger warning: This chapter deals with issues of Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria. This is not meant to be a realistic interpretation of these experience, this is purely fictional and does not reflect any real life people or experiences.

* * *

To you relief, when Charlie turns back to face you she doesn’t seem to be salivating or licking her lips, although you still find yourself glancing down to her forked canines from time to time. 

Heading back to you, Charlie kneels down to help you stand. The motion makes your head swim, and you think maybe you are losing more blood than you anticipated. You sway slightly, but Charlie keeps you steady with an outstretched hand as she walks you to the bed. 

You look down for a moment to see the extent of the damage, and notice three things in quick succession.

One, your entire torso is _soaked_ in blood, pouring out from under bandages around your waist.

Two, you are _very_ naked, aside from those few bandages. 

Three, your body is very, very unfamiliar. 

Ok so you had shrunk, that much was obvious, you knew that basically from the moment you landed in hell, but what you had not noticed during your chase through the underworld was a more radical change. 

Namely, the sudden appearance of breasts on your formerly very flat chest.

You will later deny that your reaction to this was a very loud, very shrill scream. You will insist that you did not unleash this sudden and violent scream directly into Charlie’s ear, causing her to let go of you and also start screaming. You will most certainly also refuse to even entertain the idea that you stood there, naked and bleeding and screaming, clutching one of the bed posts until Vaggie came sprinting back into the room, Angel Dust in tow.

“ _Mierda,_ Charlie what’s wrong? Did that _puta_ do someth—” Vaggie comes to a screeching halt just inside the door when she sees you and Charlie standing in the middle of the room staring at each other and screaming. Angel to pulls up short behind her, trying to stick his head into the room and see what all the noise is about.

“Ok what the fuck is going on here—” Vaggie starts, before taking one look at the blood pouring down your stomach and pooling on the floor, spinning on her heel, and leaving the room before she has a chance to smell anything. 

By this point you have stopped screaming, but are still looking down at yourself in abject horror. Charlie stands a few steps away, mouth open to shout just in case the screaming starts up again.

With Vaggie out of the way, Angel finally pokes his head into the room, ducking slightly under the doorframe. 

“Hey where’s the fire?” When he sees you standing next to the bed, he cracks a wide gold-toothed smile, “Aye toots! You’re awake, good for you. And um, you’re bleeding. And naked. What kinda kinky party is this, huh?” Angel moves to step into the room, bringing your head snapping up to look at him in horror.

Without thinking, you break the wooden bed post off in your hand and fling it directly at Angel’s head.

“GET OUT!!” You screech, moving to try and hide behind Charlie.

Angel, thankfully, ducks your projectile and sprints back down the hallway with a backwards “Fuck that mess,” the door slamming behind him. 

You and Charlie stand in silence for a moment before she turns her head to look at you, cowering behind her back.

“Um, are you going to scream again?” She asks, trying create as much distance as possible between the two of you.

“I don’t know, it’s possible?” You answer honestly, taking another look down at your very different, very _feminine_ body. 

“Do you…want to tell me why you screamed?” She asks, looking genuinely lost.

“Is there a mirror, or a lake, or something reflective nearby?” You ask her suddenly, hands tightening on her shoulders.

“Oh, um, yeah, there’s a full-length mirror in the bathroom over there, you can—” Charlie doesn’t even finish her sentence before you try and bolt to the bathroom. 

You make it about three steps before you start to list dangerously to one side, and Charlie rushes to help you upright.

“Hey, wait, you’re bleeding a lot, I think the mirror can wait until we get you patched up again.” She tries to guide you back to the bed, but you shake her off, stumbling towards the bathroom. 

“No, it cant. I need to…I need to see what they’ve done to me.” You pause at the bathroom doorframe, waiting for your vision to straighten out, and then step forward to see yourself in the mirror.

_Breasts._ You really have breasts. 

It’s not that you haven’t seen breasts before. You’d participated in cleansings, and many demons are feminine in shape. On earth, you saw humans in many states of dress and undress, you understand the concept. You had taken human anatomy classes after your ascension to the 4th choir, to prepare you for human interactions. You had a grasp of the mechanics and structural realities of gender. 

But that’s just it, humans are _supposed_ to have gender. It allows them to procreate, to _be fruitful and multiply_. It was as the Maker had intended.

But not angels.

Angels have no gender. They are genderless.

And you, your new body, it is most certainly not genderless. 

You quickly lose your nerve and collapse back into a chair set against the back wall of the bathroom, covering your eyes with your hands. 

Charlie wastes no time applying pressure to your wound, folding up a red bath towel and pressing it to your bleeding abdomen. 

You barely even notice the ache, you are too caught up in the injustice of your new form.

The Seraphim had banished you from heaven, taken your name, your rank, your height, everything you had worked for. They had stripped you of your wings, your weapon, all of what made you an angel, and crafted you into something else, something not quite demon but not quite angel either. And to top it off, they had forced you into a _gendered body_. 

The thought made your stomach lurch, you think for a moment that you might vomit, but the feeling quiets into a less acute sense of general panic. 

A _gender_? Was this a sick joke? Were Michael and the rest laughing at you from on high, reveling in your debasement, in your ruination. 

Horribly, it makes a degree of sense. The feminine pronouns Charlie has been using, the feminized words thrown around by Angel and that band of fish demons, the disgusting looks some of the demons you encountered had given you. 

You had been running around in that ruined robe for hours, _hours_. Those garments are not designed to cover breasts, or anything really, they’re merely a status symbol. You had run around _essentially naked_ through hell, for hours, in a gendered body.

You think, despondently, that this must be how Eve felt when she partook of the Apple of Knowledge and was cast out. Sudden horrible clarity, the knowledge of sin that should never have been possible. And _sweet Michael_ the embarrassment, you had never known that an uncovered body could be a source for embarrassment before this. 

“Do you…want to talk about it” Charlie’s soft voice cuts into your parade of self-loathing, forcing you to look out from under your hands.

“I…oh Charlie, just look at me!” You say, feeling another round of tears threatening to fall. All these emotions! Everything is so much clearer, so much sharper without the veil of divinity, you wonder, for what feels like the thousandth time, just how humans and demons cope with all of these feelings. 

“Look at you? Do you mean your injuries? They were pretty serious when you came in but they’ve healed really quickly, only this one on your stomach is causing any issues, but by demon standards I would say that it’s actually healing really well, especially considering…” Charlie trails off when you laugh mirthlessly and throw an arm over your eyes.

“No, not the wounds, that wouldn’t bother me. My _body_ Charlie, it’s…” you wave your free hand helplessly in the air, unwilling to voice this injustice.

“It’s what?” Charlie asks gently

“ _Wrong,_ ” is all you can say, and the tone of your voice seems to silence Charlie. 

Seemingly at a loss, she moves one of your hands to hold the towel on your wound and stands.

“I’m going to go get Angel. He did a really good job at your stitches last time, so I think he should come and do them again,” Charlie take a step towards the door, but stops when your hand shoots out and grips her wrist.

“No wait! I don’t…I’m naked” You whisper. 

“What, are you worried about Angel? He’s seen a million naked people, that’s like, literally his job. I’m sure it’s not going to bother him” Charlie laughs slightly, but your grip doesn’t slacken from her wrist.

“Are you worried because he’s a man?” She tries again, “Because he’s not interested in women, um, that way.”

_That would explain why he’s in_ hell, you think vaguely. 

“Charlie, I…” You look anywhere but at Charlie, hunching into yourself, trying to cover your breasts with one arm.

“Hey, its ok, you can talk to me. What’s wrong.” Charlie kneels down in front of you and squeezes your hand comfortingly. Something about her voice, her presence, it radiates a kindness you’re not entirely familiar with.

“Charlie, angels have no gender…this body…” You finally look up at her, trying to hold back the tears that threaten to fall.

It takes a moment, but understanding spreads out slowly over Charlie’s features, and her mouth forms a silent _oh_.

“You don’t have to identify with the gender of your physical body, you know that right? We can use non-gendered pronouns for you, if you want. That wouldn’t be a problem at all.” Charlie pulls you into a firm hug, and suddenly you find yourself crying _again._ In the arms of a _demon_ of all things.

“That’s not it, it’s…I’m a sexual object now Charlie. Gender exists for procreation. _Be fruitful and multiply_. The angels have…condemned me to that,” You cling to Charlie’s rumpled dress shirt and sob. 

“Ok, that’s a lot to unpack.” Charlie says after a moment.

She pats you on the head and then pulls you off of her, holding you at arms-length.

“Firstly, your physical sex has nothing to do with your sexuality, and it doesn’t make you a sex _object_. You’re not an object, you’re a person, in a body. How you identify yourself, sexually or not, doesn’t have to be determined by your body.”

Charlie wipes a tear off your face with one hand.

“Secondly, gender doesn’t exist _for_ anything.” Charlie starts.

“But it does! I…people go to purgatory for their sexuality, it’s a _sin_.” You almost start crying again. Just thinking about the rules, all the ways a mortal could sin and all the ways that they needed to dodge those sins, to repent, to earn their spot in heaven, it makes your head spin. 

That was one of the first things you started to resent about heavenly doctrine, after that **priest**. All of it began to seem so… _arbitrary_. How many _hail Mary’s_ make up for “aberrant” sexuality, how many days of fasting for forgoing prayer, how many good works equal a failed confession? You need to repent for _coveting thy neighbor’s ass_ , but you may continue to preach from a pulpit of hypocrisy and sin in private. None of it made sense. 

“Ok, again, a lot to unpack.” Charlie takes a deep breath and looks at you squarely. “Gender, sexuality, all of that is your _choice._ This body,” she pats you over your heart, “it’s just a body. What you do, how you identify, who you love, all of that is your choice. Don’t let some silly body stop you.”

“But Charlie, there are _rules.”_ You throw your hands out in a helpless gesture.

“Yeah, well, maybe the rules are wrong sometimes.”

_Wrong_. Wasn’t that what they had thrown you out of heaven for saying? Questioning the rules? Trying to find a better way?

Was this body just a…just a consequence? Or was it a mark of what you had rejected, what you had seen as an angel? The _flaws_ in divine judgement.

You find yourself laughing, awkwardly, through tears and snot. It’s an ugly laugh, but Charlie laughs with you.

“Yeah, I thought the rules were wrong too.” You say, wiping your nose on the bandage wrapping your forearm. You don’t even _remember_ injuring yourself there, you think, laughing again. 

“Just let me know what you want, ok? We’re friends now, alright, I want you to be comfortable, so if you want to change your pronouns, or your body, or anything else, just talk to me. I won’t judge you.” Charlie gives you another hug, and you finally realize why her kindness seems so alien to you. 

_There’s no judgement_. In heaven there was _always_ judgement, divine or otherwise. 

With Charlie, there is no judgement. 

You hadn’t realized love could _exist_ without judgement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!   
>  Slightly shorter chapter this time around due to the more serious topic, it felt weird to shift right back into happy-fun-times-in-hell after that weighty conversation, so I decided to put the chapter break here.   
>  So part of what I wanted to do with our MC is to explore the whole idea of becoming gendered. At first, I was planning to treat it as a silly thing, like you might find in any gender-bend one-shot, but as I wrote it, I encountered a lot of heavy issues that our angel might be dealing with. Excluding the obvious gender dysphoria (which again, this is NOT meant to be an accurate representation of real life gender identity or dysphoria), I came up on a lot of issues about gender that are specific to religious texts, namely that the function of gender is to have sex. The “be fruitful and multiply” quote really set this off for me, because I realized that, for the angels I have written, gender probably seems like something that only exists to enable procreation. They hold this really reductive view of sex and sexuality, that it’s functional and that’s all, and I think our angel will encounter that too. I also like the idea of writing a problematic character that comes to see the flaws in their way of thinking, especially about issues like this, so I decided to take a *slightly* more serious tone for this chapter.   
> That being said, our angel decides to forgo a genderless pronoun, but that is only because I am viewing their transformation as something like puberty, moving from a non-sexual being into a sexual one. It’s not being a woman specifically that scares them, it’s being a sexual being, so that’s what I am going to focus on, I mean no shade to genderless pronouns, they are awesome, I just wanted to go a different route.   
>  This dynamic will definitely come up later, as I want our angel to continue to learn and grow away from the rigid structures of heaven, so let me know how you guys feel about this characterization. Again, gender identity is not something I myself have ever had to question or struggle with, so I am writing from an outside (i.e. cis) perspective. As always, any and all feedback is appreciated, especially with more sensitive topics like this where I want to create an interesting story, but also stay respectful to the real-life side of things.   
>  Oh, and, for logical purposes, the only things people go straight to hell for in this story are “mortal” sins, which I think would be like, stuff that breaks the 10 commandments, as well as things like rape, murder, major theft, molestation, and crimes against humanity (i.e. torture). Smaller infractions, i.e. minor theft, drug use, or in the case of this chapter, being gay, send you to purgatory, where your sins are weighed out, and then you’re either sent to hell or given some repentance stuff (like working shit jobs in heaven) and sent to heaven. I probably won’t go into huge detail about this, since it’s not really super important to the story, but understand that most people (like >90%) go to hell, and a lot of them go for things that are 1) not wrong at all, but may conflict with religious doctrine, or 2) really minor in the grand scheme of things. Pretty much everyone who goes to heaven goes through purgatory first.   
>  Alright that’s all from me for now, catch you guys soon!


	12. All the Running You Can Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I was shocked to have 100 hits on this fic? Haha, yeah me either.   
> On a real note, I am continuously surprised by the support and interest this fic has received in such a short time. I genuinely did not think anyone would read this massive brain dump, and I am so grateful for everyone who has given this story the time of day.   
> Thank you all! 
> 
> And now, on with the madness: 
> 
> In this chapter, your wounds are stitched, but you are far from healed...

Chapter 11: All the Running You Can Do

* * *

You don’t know how long you sit with Charlie, just letting her hug you and trying to sort through all your feelings, but eventually the towel over your stomach soaks through, and Charlie makes the executive decision that you need stitches and rest before you exsanguinate in her bathroom.

She helps you back to the bed, where you sit while she gets you a pair of oversized pajamas to wear so that Angel can come stitch up your wound, _again_. You feel a little silly, asking for clothes after everyone has already _seen_ you naked, but Charlie, true to her promise of no judgement, is more than willing to accommodate your request. 

When she goes to retrieve Angel Dust, you find yourself dozing off on the bed in spite of everything. With your wings pinned flat under the shirt you feel comfortably warm, the sensation pulling you into sleep. 

You wake to Angel’s voice filtering in from the hallway.

“You sure you ain’t gonna throw a hissy-fit over the Bolivian marching powder? I mean, I ain’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth but last time you two found drugs in my room you gave me shit for like three straight days.”

“Yes, Angel. Just this once I’ll let it slide because honestly, you do a better job at stitches than either me or Vaggie.” You hear Charlie’s voice, sounding distinctly more tired than it had a few minutes ago. You hope vaguely that Angel isn’t giving her too much trouble.

_Heaven’s mercy_ , you’ve known this woman for all of an hour and you’re already worrying about her. She really has a charm.

“You got that right, you two were fuckin’ useless. You’d think you’d never had to stitch a gunshot wound” You can practically hear the sneer in Angel’s voice.

“Um… well, I haven’t.”

“Fuckin’ aristocrats I swear.”

Angels fluffy hair precedes him into the room, followed closely by a pink slipper and a long leg. The rest of Angel enters shortly after, clad in a thin white tank-top and hot-pink track shorts. _Pajamas_? You wonder what time it is.

“Aye, look alive doll face.” Angel shoots you a finger gun with one hand, another brandishing a small white box and the last two resting on his hips. 

You smile from the bed, try momentarily to sit, but immediately give up and stay laying down.

“Or don’t. Jesus kid you look like shit, how long were you standing there bleedin’ on the carpet?” As Angel Dust approaches you, you can see that his mismatched pupils are unevenly dilated. Is he on drugs? Currently?

You’re not sure how you feel about that. On the one hand, it seems to be stopping him from smelling the blood that’s _literally_ painting the room right now. But on the other, you aren’t thrilled by the prospect of having an intoxicated spider stick a needle into your open wound. 

“You’re going to stitch me up like that?” You ask, without thinking. 

“Yeah? Why? I got a slutty nurse costume back in my room, I can go put that on if ya want babe, but keep in mind I charge extra for girls.” Angel cocks his hip and opens the white box in his hand, pulling out a needle and several spools of thread. 

“That’s not…” You almost explain yourself, but then decide that if Angel stitched you up before after taking Michael-only-knows-what in that alleyway, he could probably do so again.

“Never mind.”

“Yeah that’s what I thought toots.” Angel threads the needle quickly with two hands, using the other set to pull up your shirt and expose your stomach. “You’re lucky I’m even doin’ this, but if it gets the princess off my back about that marching powder, what the hey.”

With one sharp pink claw, Angel slices through the bandages over your stomach, exposing an ugly puncture mark just above your left hip-bone. The stitches previously holding the wound closed are mangled, some broken, others ripped through the skin whole. The effect is grotesque, you wince just looking at it.

“Damn sister, what did you do? Fuckin’ gymnastics?” Angel sounds appalled, but doesn’t hesitate to start popping out the old stitches with his sharp claws. The sensation is far from pleasant, so you try to talk over it.

“Oh, I just tried to kill Vaggie is all. And I broke a chair. And a table.” You speak through gritted teeth as Angel works.

“Holy shit toots that’s awesome, did you get a good hit in at least?” Angel snickers, flashing his gold tooth.

“Um, not on Vaggie no, but I did hit Charlie with the chair. I suppose I tried to kill her too” You look to your right to where Charlie is standing by the door and give her an apologetic smile. She laughs and waves you off.

“Damn, I like your style babe. Good thing I didn’t bring along that fuckin’ tooth you was carrying around, or you mighta’ actually killed my landlords and I woulda been out of a room.” Angel’s stitching is precise and very quick. Frankly, it hurts much less than you expected it to, you can’t deny that Angel is very good at this.

You wonder where he learned such a skill.

“Um, Angel,” You start awkwardly as Angel nears the end of the stitches.

“What?”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah you better thank me toots, I don’t do stitches on just anyone, don’t let my fans hear about this or my creepy fan mail is gonna get a _lot_ creepier” Angel cringes.

“No I mean, thank you, for—” Angel abruptly yanks on the thread, tying a swift knot in the last stitch. The rough motion shoots pain down to your spine, and makes your breath catch in your throat.

Angel leans his face in dangerously close, speaking in a low growl, and you can smell something chemical on his breath as it wafts over you.

“I said to quit thankin’ me you creep. Look, the way I see it, we’re even now, alright squirt? I don’t owe nobody nothin’, especially not some dumbass who can’t handle a couple of shitty corner-store thugs.” Angel slices through the end of the thread and jams a manicured claw into your chest. “Ya’ got that?”

You’re taken aback for a second, not sure how to respond to such a straightforward rejection. 

You think back to Angel’s behavior last night, the way he’d insisted that he hadn’t saved you, the way he’d brushed off your thanks.

If Charlie can lend you a shirt so you can be comfortable in some stupid new body, you suppose that the least you can do is let Angel get away without a proper thank-you, if it means that much to him.

You shrug slightly and give Angel a tired smile.

“Ok Angel, we’re even”

He visibly relaxes, then stands up from your bedside and stretches dramatically

“Alright toots, I’m going back to my room to get my beauty sleep while I still can, we can’t all crash for three days like a fuckin’ bum, some of us have shit to do” Angel spins on one heel and struts out of your room

You’re silent for a second before turning your head towards Charlie.

“Did he say three days?”

…

It takes Charlie a few minutes to talk you down from demanding to know what had happened in the three days you were asleep. Then it takes her a few more minutes to talk you out of getting out of bed and going to find out for yourself where exactly you are and what had happened. 

Eventually, with the promise to explain everything and give you a grand tour when you are well enough, she manages to get you to lay back in bed and allow her to turn off the lights and leave you to rest.

Sleep does not come easily. Every time you feel yourself touching the gossamer edge of unconsciousness, a violent sensation of falling jerks you back to a sweaty, startled reality. In the back of your aching head you can almost hear the voices of an angelic choir, laughing cruelly. 

The music of their hatred carries you, at last, to sleep.

…

The snow falls quietly around you, muffling the sounds pouring from the stone church. Through the colorful glass windows you can see candlelight pouring out, staining the snow blood red in places. 

The cold doesn’t bother your divine body, so you allow yourself to become corporeal, the snow piling softly atop your wings and falling in delicate drifts from your horns. You want to feel the cold.

You stand at the edge of the courtyard listening to the soft voices the filtering from the structure, sinking into the frozen ground of the church cemetery

Your **priest** has died. 

A heart condition, you think. You sensed his death looming months ago, his heartbeat becoming increasingly erratic, sometimes stuttering almost to a stop as he slept.

Eventually, it did not start up again. 

And all you had felt, standing over his cold body and silent heart, was _relief_.

The parish laments his passing, a **priest** from the next village over has come to provide the death rights for the dead man. 

He had been young.

The humans weep his passing.

You do not go inside.

There are too many faces in there, too many young humans wading through darkness, through pain, through sin, looking down at the face of their corrupter. You cannot bear to enter the church, you hadn’t been able to in a long while.

The Thrones had expressly forbidden you from interfering, so you simply watched as the darkness spread throughout your parish like an insidious rot, taking hold of the weak, bending them into broken, hurting things. Your percentages on your monthly reports did not change, the Thrones did not ask any questions. 

So you watched, and you continue to watch as the mourners file away from the building and towards the cemetery, towards you. A group carries a casket to a spot next to the church wall, already prepared for the body of your **priest**.

In the show stands a young man, slightly apart from the group. You know him, of course. 

He is the first, the first human you failed.

His face is haggard, and you can feel the sin on him at this distance. There had been no recourse for the child, no support, no aid, and so there was pain in the young man. Something broken, deep inside, buried under everything else, something poisonous, something deadly. Something that has slowly rotted him away.

The young man turns momentarily, looking out over the cemetery and towards you. You think for a moment that he sees you, and the look of pure blame, pure disgust on his face nearly sense you fleeing into the night. But no, he can’t see you, of course, and you realize that that look of pain, of blame, its directed at the world, not you. 

You feel a tear roll down your face and land, glittering in the snow. 

“Why are you crying?” a small voice from your right asks.

“Because I failed.” You respond softly, choking on your tears.

“You didn’t fail.” The voice replies.

You turn to look at the speaker, and find, to your horror, a gathering of all the humans, all the boys tainted by this place, standing beside you.

In the front is the first boy, young and not yet knowing pain, he looks at you with wide childish eyes.

“You didn’t fail,” He repeats, although his mouth doesn’t move, his voice echoing around you in the empty snow. “You can’t fail if you never even tried.”

Sobbing, you tear yourself away from the eyes of the boys and run as fast as you can into the snow. The snow feels endless, the church is gone, the humans are gone, but you keep running, running from the echoes behind you

“you never even tried..”

“I tried, I swear!” you yell into the growing darkness, the snow turning to ash on your skin. “I tried, there was nothing I could do!”

But your words are ash too, ash on your tongue, ash in the hearts of the humans you left to burn.

And the darkness suddenly erupts into violence, violence and fire

You’re running, all around you is chaos. 

Ahead of you, a tall figure crumples to the ground, a holy lance sticking grotesquely from its neck. You vault over its corpse and keep running

Where is your Valiant Weapon?

Why can’t you fly?

Another figure to your left is pierced by a whizzing Valiant arrow, spraying you in an arc of white hot blood. 

Sputtering, you backpedal, only to bump into something large behind you.

You turn, neck craning to see the face of the white-robed figure. 

It’s an archangel, in an extermination mask, its Valiant weapon raised to strike. You are tiny below it, a puny helpless thing. 

“Die, demon” the figure cackles, before bringing the spear down upon you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again <3! I hope you all enjoyed that chapter. I know the pacing was a little funny, since had to split up the previous chapter. It felt more natural to include a second dream sequence here rather than try and move right into the next day (plus I have several more flashbacks/backstory scenes planned and outlined so the earlier the start the better). Let me know how you all feel about these dream sequences, I don’t want to include them so often that they start to become annoying, but our Angel does have a lot of *demons* in her past (hehehe). Our next chapter will get into some more body stuff, as well as place us in time in reference to the Hazbin canon. We still have a few more things to cover before we hit the official cannon, I estimate 4-ish chapter before everyone’s favorite demon makes his appearance.   
>  If I had to estimate the total length of this fic, at this point, I would say it’s going to end up being LONG AS FUCK. But then again if I had to estimate the length of the pandemic in America from now until things go back to normal, I would also guess LONG AS FUCK, so I should have plenty of time for writing (haha T_T). Dapper Dresser, I’m coming for your word count.   
>  Next chapter should be a longer one, so strap in folks!   
>  p.s. thank you so much to everyone who has left such sweet comments on this fic, and to everyone who has clicked or left Kudos, you all are incredible, and I am amazed every time I log in by the support you have shown for this silly little writing project. I love you all! Keep being amazing!


	13. Who in the World am I?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick reminder that I don't own Hazbin Hotel, now that it has finally shown up in this fic. That glorious property is all Vivziepop!
> 
> In this chapter you take a bath...that's basically it.

Chapter 12: Who in the World Am I?

* * *

You awake to the sensation of **falling** , and you almost scream, before the sensation of colliding with the carpeted floor of the room yanks you back into reality. 

You’re on the ground, next to the bed, tangled in your sheet. The rest of the blankets and pillows from the bed lay scattered around the room. 

_What time is it?_ You think blearily, trying to disentangle yourself from your sheet. The details of your dream are fading fast, but the lingering sense of panic puts you on edge. You know you won’t be getting any more sleep tonight.

 _Or today_ , you think, noticing the soft red glow coming in through the curtains. Finally kicking off your sheet, you stand stiffly, hissing at the dull aching pull in your abdomen. 

_Right,_ you remember, stabbed with a Valiant spear, and your healing factor severely slowed. Moving to pick up your sheet, you notice a glass of water and a roll of bandages on the ground next to the bed, thankfully spared from the onslaught of pillows. Under the glass is a note, scrawled in neat cursive:

_Be sure to drink this water when you wake up! Vaggie and I are just down the hall in 201 if you need anything._

Underneath the writing is what looks like a drawing of a crude angel and two horned demon holding hands, a rainbow sparkling behind them. _Charlie_ , you think. You don’t know much about the demon, but the enthusiasm practically radiating off of this note certainly couldn’t be Angel, or the sullen Vaggie. 

“ _in 201”_ you aren’t sure what that means, but you decide it’s the least of your concerns, so instead you gulp down the glass of water and set the note and empty glass aside. You had never been _thirsty_ before now, but the sensation is deeply unpleasant now that you recognize it. You make a mental note to thank Charlie later for the water. 

Grabbing the bandages, you sit on your empty bed and remove Charlie’s oversized shirt. 

The sight of your new and still very unfamiliar breasts shocks you _again_ , but, remembering Charlie’s words, you tell yourself _it’s just a body_ , and try to focus on your wound. 

Your bandages seem clean, but you think you should probably re-wrap the wound anyway, knowing you will need tight bandages if you want to actually get out of bed today…or tonight…or whatever time it is. 

Your nails are, sadly, not nearly as sharp as Angels, although they do look distinctly more wicked than they ever had in your previous form. Regardless, you forgo slicing through the bandages and unwrap them instead. After a few turns, you start to see brown spots of blood that have seeped through the cotton, but when you get to the wound, it looks clean and dry. However long ago it had been bleeding, it’s stopped now. 

With the stitches intact, the cut doesn’t look nearly as gruesome as it had when you last saw it. You notice that Angel used a hot pink thread to stick up your wound, which strikes you as very in-character from what little you have seen. The puncture itself is maybe 3cm in length, just above your hipbone and pointing up and in towards your sternum. You’re happy to see that the skin around it isn’t an angry red or swollen. You don’t know if you are now susceptible to infection like a human, but you don’t particularly want to find out. 

Deciding to inspect your other wounds before making an attempt at the day, you set to unwrapping the bandages from around your hands, arms, and the rest of your limbs.

The skin on your arms is unmarred under the bandages, no trace of whatever injury had been there except for some slight pinkness in certain areas. Your hands too seem intact, except for a jagged pink line of scar tissue running across the palms. Flexing them several times, you notice that the skin feels tight, but still functional, which you are thankful for. 

The wound on your leg is completely healed, except for two parallel lines of scar tissue made by the demon’s claws. The lower edges of the scars merge with the feathers extending towards your taloned feet, leaving a notch of featherless skin. The effect is dramatic, and given the lack of pain, you find yourself not at all opposed to the idea of scars. You find them a useful reminder of all you have survived so far.

Your feet seemed largely healed as well, the leathery skin on the bottom is intact, and seems to be coming back significantly thicker. The pale yellow scales on the top of your feet look pristine, if a bit dirty, and your talons seem to have escaped any serious breaks or scuffs. In fact, they seem somehow sharper than before, with a wicked reddish glint to them. _Or maybe that’s just the lighting_

Shrugging, you work your shorts off and make your way to the bathroom, hoping to clean off the crumbling dried blood before getting dressed again. 

You limp a little at the deep ache in your stomach, and have to press one arm into your side to keep the pain to a minimum, but you make it the short few steps to the bathroom without incident. 

Looking at yourself directly, you realize that you look horrible, exhausted and covered in patches of grime. Your face is haggard, and caked in dried blood. The circles under your eyes are noticeable, despite your sleep, and your skin looks even more pale than usual. Although, judging by the corpse-hues of most of the demons you have encountered, it’s possible that your new body is simply permanently gray-toned. One of your horns is broken towards the end, a fact you had forgotten until just now. You run a finger over the jagged edge and wince at the feeling. You make a mental note to sand the edge down into something less violent the next chance you get. 

Your short white-blonde hair is caked in blood, either yours or from various demons, and a chunk at the back is matted into one huge clump, from where you assume you hit your head in the alleyway. At least it doesn’t hurt anymore. Your eyes look the same as you remember, yellow and with a round dark pupil. 

Angel’s eyes, like much of their bodies, resemble earth birds, and have no whites. Experimentally, you try to blink your second eyelid and find that too, intact. Another good sign. 

The feathers extending down your neck are splattered with blood too, but largely unharmed and their usual dove gray color, although underneath them you can see a yellow-green smudge. Ruffling your feathers with one hand, you expose a massive healing bruise around the front of your neck.

 _From being choked_ , you realize in disgust, trying to lay your feathers flat to cover the mark. Flakes of dried blood come off in your hands, and eventually you give up the endeavor. 

Really, you’re just stalling, looking for anything to inspect instead of facing the real lasting mutilation. Sighing, you steel your nerves, you bring your wings forward under your arms and take in the extent of the damage.

It’s horrible, truly grotesque. The feathers are completely gone, entirely burned off and leaving your wings less than half the length they should be. The remaining flesh is pulled taught and scarred into shiny, black tissue, Chunks of skin and muscle are missing completely in some areas, leaving gaping holes in the structure. You have no idea why your feathers didn’t grow back, why your wings healed into these twisted burned things and not into functional wings, or why the skin is now blackened, as if still burning in the holy flames. 

You run a hand over your wing and find that it doesn’t hurt, but it does ache in a deep and acutely emotional way. The end of your right wing is slightly kinked, you notice. 

_Where that demon had broken it,_ you think that Charlie and the others must not have noticed the injury, or maybe they didn’t know how to set the bone, so it had healed at a slight angle, a permanent mark, along with the scar on your leg, of what that first demon had done to you. 

You pull your ruined wings forward, hugging yourself over your unfamiliar breasts. The skeletonized limbs are warm, even without their feathers, and you try to feel that warmth all the way through you, remind yourself that you are alive in spite of everything that has been taken from you. The muscles ache and pull at the movement, but you don’t relent, standing there holding yourself until the prickling in your eyes slowly stops. 

You look back up to the mirror. You try to focus on the things that are familiar, your yellow eyes, your white hair, the feathers extending down your neck and to your sharp angular collarbone, the harsh angle of your ribs as they extend towards your thin waist. 

_Wait a moment._

Under your wing, on the side of your ribcage, you can just make out a raised pink edge, like the scar on your leg. 

You pull your wing back and lift one arm, trying to turn your body to see just what is on your ribs. 

_A Pentagram_. The mark is an exact replica of the binding seal ever present in the hellscape sky, etched into your skin as if burned there. 

_Gabriel comes forward, the metal in his hand heated to glowing. Your wings are held away from you, your arms restrained by a half dozen other angels. Gabriel pins your heaving chest down with one foot and presses the searing metal to your flesh, just under your left wing. The sensation is agony, you try to scream, but your angelic voice is quiet, peaceful even as you sob your pain into the heavenly ground._

_The branding done, Gabriel signals for the angels around you to carry you to the edge, to throw you from the arms of heaven, into your **fall**. As their hands drag you, the searing heat of the brand only worsens, spreading through your body like liquid fire, pumping through your veins. You writhe helplessly, clawing at your skin, trying to relieve the burning. _

_Then you see it, on the edge of your wing as you flap desperately, a white hot flame, licking up the top of your wing and curling the feathers it touches._

_You are burning, the brand has set you aflame._

_You are engulfed as you **fall.**_

The memory sends you reeling. _They had branded you_. Branded you a traitor with the seal of hell, locked you in this plane forever. You know what this brand means, what it signifies. 

Even if somehow you found a way to redeem yourself, a way to move back into heavens graces, you can never return. Not with this brand, a mark you know you share with Lucifer. Any person or object branded with the seal of hell would burst into holy fire should it touch heaven’s ground. 

It’s not that you wanted…not that you _want_ to return, but facing physical proof that you _can’t_ return, regardless of what you may or may not want, it hurts you much more deeply than you expect. It settles like a weight in your chest, a different pain than the unease you have so often felt in the face of divine folly, but something much more sad, much more _permanent_. 

Trying to take your mind off of your excommunication, you turn yourself fully is far from what you expect.

 _I can’t catch a break_ , you think. There really is no end to the desecration Michael has brought upon you. Covering your entire back, from neck to sacrum, is an immense black Saint Peter’s cross extending between your wings. Up near your shoulders, your heather gray feathers are dyed a deep black, while further down the skin itself seems to have been corrupted by the mark. 

St. Peter’s crosses are popular in Hell, a symbol once considered holy but eventually co-opted by demon-worshipping cults on earth to evoke the “opposite” of religious canon. The symbol is a source of embarrassment and shame in heaven, and now you are marked with one. Literally, the shame of heaven. 

Strangely, unlike the brand on your ribs, this mark inspires a wave of perverse manic laughter. _Sure,_ you think, _mark me as your shame Michael._ Somehow the idea is vindicating, Michael had stripped you of all that made you powerful, but at the same time, marked you as something powerful enough to shame all of heaven, as worthwhile as the perversion of Saint Peter’s cross.

Your laughing fit doesn’t last long, what with the burning ache it inspires in your wounded stomach, but it does wonders for your mood. You feel stronger somehow, more capable of change, of confronting hell. You smile slightly to yourself, exposing your mouthful of sharpened but still recognizable teeth. 

_Shame of heaven?_ You think you can live with that.

…

The bathroom, much to your relief, seems more than stocked with everything you could possibly need to clean the blood and grime off of your body. Unsure of the protocols for the complex range of soaps you find under the sink, you stick with a single bar of unscented soap and grab a few towels. 

The idea of submerging your healing wound doesn’t really appeal to you. It takes you a while to figure out, but you manage to instead run a lukewarm bath, and seat yourself on the edge of the tub with a rag to try and sponge off the grime. 

The water soaking your feet feels phenomenal, and you keep flexing your talons, watching clouds of rusty brown float away from them. Eventually, you pass a rag to your taloned foot and use it to scrub at your partially submerged leg while your hands use a second rag to sponge away the grime from your body, being careful to avoid your stomach wound. It doesn’t take long for the water to turn completely brown, despite the fact that, from what you can tell, Charlie and Vaggie must have cleaned you up somewhat to bandage your wounds. 

You’re forced to run a second bath before switching the rag to your other foot, and carefully working a damp towel through the feathers at your shoulders. To wash your hair, you end up sitting on the ground beside the tub and leaning your head back under the faucet to wash away the clumps of blood. The whole ordeal takes much longer than you expect, and you find yourself wishing heartily for a dust bath, but on the bright side, your ruined wings take almost no time to clean. 

You’re trying to stay optimistic, you know, but just touching the taught scars where there were once soft feathers makes your skin crawl. Focusing on the bright side only helps so much. 

You do, however, feel much better once you’re clean. And more willing to rewrap your stomach wound. Pinning the edge of the bandage down in one hand, you wrap the strip around you as tightly as you can manage, trying to compress your wound and keep it from splitting open again and tying it off in a secure knot at your hip. 

You try to straighten the bathroom back up to the best of your ability, leaving with a pile of used towels and a grimy bathmat which you set by the door. It takes you a moment, but you eventually find a light switch and try to take stock of the room.

You knew you had caused some damage when you had first woken up, and you anticipated some blood stains as well from your bleeding, but the room looks like the scene of a very recent and very brutal murder. Or possibly a ritual animal slaughter. Your bed is stripped, the remaining sheets smudged with suspicious rust-brown stains. Blankets and pillows lay scattered across the floor, along with splintered chunks of wood. The frame of the door next to you is dented, and on the ground in the corner lie the broken remnants of the bedside table and bedpost you had thrown. The destroyed chair has been pushed into a pile at the end of your bed. 

Charlie has accepted you into her home, healed your wounds, and you had completely trashed this room. Destroyed it. The air even smelled bad, reeking vaguely of demon blood. 

Sighing, you move to pick up the discarded sheets, stripping the bed and piling the pillows back on the mattress, gathering the dirty bedclothes and tossing them on the pile of used towels. Picking up the sheets, however, only serves to reveal the floor, where the beige carpet has been absolutely drenched in blood. There’s splatter patterns across the rug and onto the baseboard, as well as two large round stains, one near the wall where you had briefly sat after assaulting your hosts, and the other by the corner of the bed where you had stood bleeding for minutes on end. On top of that, the blood has been tracked in suspiciously four-toed footprints across the rug and to the bathroom. You aren’t even sure _how_ to clean such a mess.

Deciding to ignore the bloodstains for now, you focus instead on gathering the broken furniture, piling all the woodchips on a dirty sheet and tying the mess into a bundle. You even use one talon to slice off the splintered top of the bedpost you had broken, creating a flat blunt edge that looks marginally less awful. 

Moving around helps your stomach somewhat, transforming the burning pain into a sort of dull ache that you find you can easily suppress as you focus on your work. 

To your surprise and, oddly, joy, you find folded up on a low dresser the tattered remains of your angelic robe. The thing reeks, and has a jagged edge where you had repeatedly cut it into strips, not to mention a half-dozen holes from your fall and near-deadly stabbing. And yet, the garment is…oddly nostalgic. You can’t find it in yourself to throw it away, in spite of its obviously ruined condition. Instead, you refold it and set it back on the desk, deciding to try and find a way to clean it later. Angelic cloth is valuable, and you don’t imagine that you will find much more of it in Hell. 

Your room somewhat clean, you decide to attempt to locate Charlie, hoping she can point you to tools to clean the carpet. 

It only takes one look at the shirt and shorts Charlie had lent you to know that they need to be cleaned before you can even think about returning them, much less wearing them again, so instead you pilfer two more towels from a shelf over the sink, tying them swiftly together to make a larger cloth you can fashion into a functional robe. 

You debate briefly about where to put your ruined wings in this arrangement. You don’t want to cut holes in Charlie’s towels, and sticking your wings out through the gaps where the towels are tied together sounds awkward at best. Thinking of your puncture wound, you opt to wrap your wings around your stomach, keeping them pressed against your abdomen and covering your injury.

Clothed, you swing open the door of your room and make your way into the rest of the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> I hope you enjoyed that slow chapter. I knew I needed to establish what our Angel looks like (aside from the whole being a woman now thing,) And enlighten you guys as to the condition of her wings. Looks like they are totally ruined, I am cruel, I know.  
> How do you all feel about the pace of these slower chapters? Are they still engaging? Again, I am a total action junkie, so writing this slower-paced stuff is a bit of a challenge for me, especially since I struggle to find interesting ways to describe normal motions like, I dunno, looking at yourself in the mirror or cleaning up a room. I hope the phrasing and overall pace wasn’t too awkward. As always, comments, questions, etc. are super appreciated.  
> I read another Hazbin fic recently called Inside of Every Demon is a Lost Cause, which was a really fun little romp with a great OC. But anyways, the author chose to represent Hell in that fic as sort of painfully mediocre, as in the sheets are scratchy and the water is lukewarm and nothing is quite as nice as it should be. I really loved that image, since 1) most of the Hazbin fics I’ve read have displayed the hotel as really luxurious, and 2) In the show, Alastor’s clothes are always a little ripped or frayed at the edges, a detail I didn’t even notice until after I read that fic. While I don’t think I’m going to play super far into the “mediocrity of hell” angle, I was inspired to temper my descriptions of the hotel to be more…run down? So I hope to show some of that as we continue on.  
> Anyways, I hope this chapter clears up any lingering questions you all may have about our MC. Just a note, her feet are Ansiodactyl (meaning, three toes in the front and one in the back), like most birds, but still prehensile, and can be used to grab things like a falcon would. I study birds, if you can’t tell lol. I picture our MC as having the same energy as a secretary bird, as in long and thin but also very scary ( just look at this fabulous critter taking down a snake: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/552535448031534123/?nic_v2=1a3xFcSg4 ). Her eyes are also bird-like, although her face is basically human, I think she looks a bit like the princess from Hellboy 2 but with shorter hair (and horns and all that).  
> Here’s a link if you’re curious: https://hellboy.fandom.com/wiki/Nuala  
> Anyways, I hope you all are enjoying the fic in its more laid-back chapters, see you soon <3


	14. And What Does IT Live On?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! I'm putting this here for now, but until something changes, you can expect an upload every weekday from me :)  
> Since I'm writing this as it comes to me, I'm not doing a ton of editing, especially not for pace or brevity (and if you haven't noticed my writing can be a bit wordy) so its taking a while to get into the Alastor section of this fic, but rest assured we will get there, and probably stay there for a long-ass time  
> <3 Than you all for reading.
> 
> In this chapter, you explore the hotel and discover the joys of takeout...

Chapter 13: And What Does IT Live On?

* * *

When you step out of the room and into the hallway, you realize two things.

One: Your room smells much worse than you had thought, judging by the waft of deliciously fresh air that hits as you step through the door.

And two: this building is much larger than you had originally imagined, larger even than most of the churches you had visited on earth. 

The hallway you find yourself in extends almost out of sight in both directions (which isn’t saying much, considering the low light and dark colors). The floor is covered in a long blood red carpet bordered with botanical designs. The walls are similarly colored, and only dim lights every 5 meters or so provide a weak red glow. Turning back to your door, you notice a gold plaque engraved with 221.

Immediately you think of Peter 2:21, the verse popping into your head with practiced ease.

_For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them._

You briefly consider switching rooms, but, scanning the hallway, you realize that all the doors have numbers, all of which correspond to bible verses, all of which can be construed to hold some relevance to your current situation. 

You sigh at the thought, questioning if you’ll ever be able to kick the habits of your training, or if your brain will continue to plague you with mistimed observations and pithy judgements for as long as you remain in hell.

_Vaggie and I are just down the hall in 201 if you need anything._

Remembering the note from your bedside, you realize that 201 must be the number for the room in which Charlie and Vaggie are staying. You wonder briefly what the purpose of this building with its numbered rooms might be. The concept feels vaguely familiar, but you so rarely explored the nuances of human life and practice, you can’t quite pinpoint the idea in your mind. 

Sighing, you set off down the hall towards the lower numbers, keeping a lookout for 201. The carpet is thick in a way that seems determined to trip-up your taloned feet, and the dim lighting has you seeing demon faces in every shadow. When you find door 201, at the end of the hallway, next to a window affording a view of a grimy red-tinged alleyway, you are more than glad to be out of this eerie place. 

You knock just below the brass door number and call out a loud “Charlie?”

When no sound greets you, you try again, with the same result. 

You double check the number on the door and confirm that this is in face room no 201\. 

You wait another moment before walking to the window at the end of the hall and craning your neck to get a view of the sky. The red pentagram seal is dim, but still easily visible, and the overall light is still decent, although the shadows are long. Unsure of the direction of the sun in Hell, you assume that it must either be early morning or late evening.

_Well, if you can’t find Charlie_ , you decide instead to take this time to conduct some quick explorations of this strange building, and maybe find your demon benefactor in the process. 

As you walk back down the hall and past your room, you notice a wide staircase intersecting your floor before continuing up to the floor above. You briefly consider following the stairs up, curious as to how far the building goes vertically, given its sprawling hallways, before you hear the faint sound of voices filtering up from below. The staircase extends down into the reddish dusk at a sickening angle, and appears to zigzag back and forth in a disconcerting manner. 

The construction of this whole building feels designed to put you on edge. Pulling your wings tighter around your stomach and taking a deep breath, you start down the stairs, gripping the elaborate dark wood banister in one hand. The scrollwork is smooth under your hand, and the carpet is thick enough for your feet to sink into in a strangely uncomfortable way. The sensation isn’t unlike that of walking across the splattered gore you had navigated just a few days ago. 

The thought sends a shudder through you, and you hurry the rest of the way down the staircase, wincing and trying to support your injured side with your wings

After a long and uncomfortably steep flight, the staircase make a 180 degree turn and opens into a wide final descent down into a tall central room. 

The staircase here is much less steep, and far more beautifully decorated with a thick cream and maroon central carpet edged with abstract vines and bright red apples. The room below is…less impressive. The space itself is huge, but in sad disrepair, with beautiful portraits piled in corners and covered in shredded canvas, and huge couches flipped on their sides and pushed up against the walls. Off to one side, a small folding table has been set up, and sitting at it you see Vaggie and Charlie with her back to you eating something out of small white boxes and laughing. 

As you move down the central staircase, Vaggie notices you first and stiffens, setting her silverware down and reaching for something under the table. Charlie seems to register her reaction, and spins to look behind her before catching sight of you and breaking into an earsplitting grin. You find yourself thrown all over again by her resemblance to a Cherubim. The pale face and rosy cheeks, juxtaposed with the sharp predatory teeth, the effect is spine chilling. 

Charlie’s smile falters for a second, and you realize that you are staring and abruptly raise your hand to return her wave. 

“How are you feeling?” she calls to you as she pushes her chair back. Vaggie, you notice, doesn’t move from her spot. 

“I, um, better, I think. Everything but my stomach has healed.” You try to smile at Charlie, but the movement feels awkward.

“We got you some…” Charlie’s eyes travel down and take in your makeshift robe. “Um, what are you wearing?”

“I borrowed some towels, I didn’t have any clothes to wear, and I haven’t washed the ones you gave me and—”

“Charlie.” Vaggie’s voice comes from behind Charlie, the tone itself makes you flinch and immediately stop talking. 

Charlie turns around to look at Vaggie and then back to you with a slightly guilty expression.

“I, well, we…Vaggie and I, we were hoping to, maybe, talk to you?” Charlie clasps her hands in front of her and twists them together

Now it’s her tone that puts you on edge, but you know that you’re cornered, literally and morally. Charlie saved your life (since Angel is not accepting that title), and you destroyed one of the rooms in her…very expansive house. 

And “talking” sounds…safe?

You think it sounds safe. Vaggie looks like she wants to skin you alive, but Charlie has so far been very helpful. But, then again, maybe in Hell “talking” is a euphemism for…you don’t know, draining someone’s blood and selling it to other demons to fund repairs on your beautiful but decrepit house?

_They have money in Hell right?_

You’re overthinking this, you realize, and Charlie is looking at you like she expects you to pass out. 

_Talking cannot possibly be that bad._ You tell yourself, and offer her another awkward smile, allowing her to lead you to a seat across from Vaggie at the folding table. 

As you sit, you notice the strong smell coming off from the white boxes. The smell is vaguely familiar, but also unlike anything you have smelled before. Somehow, it’s good, _really_ good, and the thought makes your mouth water and your stomach make a strange, and very frightening growling sound.

You flinch and stare down at yourself in horror, but Charlie responds with laughter and passes you a white box.

“You sound hungry, you can eat while we talk, that’s no problem,” She looks at Vaggie for conformation before passing you a pair of wooden sticks.

You drag your gaze from your rebellious stomach, to the box, to the sticks, and finally to Charlie with a look of flat noncomprehension.

She stares at you for a moment before motioning towards the box again, still smiling.

“It’s Chinese food, I know it’s just takeout, but you must be hungry. I didn’t know what you’d want to I just got you my usual.”

This box is food? Now that Charlie has mentioned it, you do think the smell is strongly reminiscent of human food. And those sticks, that’s an eating utensil in some earth cultures, right? You vaguely recall seeing them used in locations where you had been stationed. 

You had assumed that Demons needed to eat, in fact during your brief time in the city you think that you passed a few Demons eating in outdoor patio areas. 

And there was the fact that Demons had tried to eat _you_. So it makes sense that they would need food. But that you would need food?

It’s not that angels _don’t_ eat, or even that you necessarily _are_ an angel at this point. But angels only eat divine food, humans had termed the food of celestial beings “ambrosia,” and the name had largely stuck since its coining long before your birth. Ambrosia is made by 9th choir angels, other angels simply pick up their rations when convenient. 

Come to think of it, if it had been at least 3 days since your fall, it must have been nearly a week since you had last eaten. But how would you get ambrosia in Hell?

Undeterred, Charlie reaches towards you and opens the box, wafting a hot blast of delicious-smelling air in your direction. Your stomach makes that awful noise again, and Charlie looks at you encouragingly, the sticks extended in her hand.

“I…I don’t know if I can eat this.” You stutter, looking at Charlie with wide eyes.

Vaggie snorts and leans back in her chair, looking offended, but Charlie’s smile never falters.

“It’s good, trust me. I’m told food in Hell isn’t the best, but you sound hungry.” She waves the sticks in your direction again, and you find yourself taking them without thinking.

You _sound_ hungry? Is she referring to that awful noise your stomach is making?

Thinking about it gives you a hollow feeling inside, almost like the unease you are so familiar with, but far more immediate and biting.

_Is this hunger? Are you hungry?_ You have absolutely no clue, but the sensation is unfamiliar, and given all the other changes your body has undergone in the last few days, it would hardly be surprising. 

Charlie makes an encouraging motion with her hands and leans impossibly further over the table.

_Well_ , at the very least, Charlie looks like she will fall out of her chair if you don’t make a move, and consuming human food wasn’t harmful to you as an angel, you reason this likely won’t kill you.

But _these sticks_. You have no idea what you’re expected to do with them. You can distantly picture humans holding both sticks in one hand and gripping the food, but just by looking you can tell that you won’t be able to recreate that motion. 

Instead, you hold both sticks together and use them to spear a chunk of something in your box and bring it to your mouth. 

Charlie laughs immediately.

“Have you never used chopsticks before, here let me show…”

Either Charlie trails off, or you stop listening as the food touches your tongue. The only thing you can compare the sensation to is flying down to earth the first time, the rush of pure adrenaline. The sensation is _entirely_ new, you feel like a blind man gifted sight, discovering a sense you never knew you had. 

The food is _fantastic_. The flavor is delicious and robust and unbelievably _full_ , you can’t get enough. 

Using your sticks as a shovel, you grab the box and tilt the whole thing into your mouth, trying to get as much of the food down your throat as quickly as possible. 

A goal which lasts all of 10 seconds before you start to choke. 

In a panic, Charlie passes you a glass of water as you try to get enough air into your lungs to cough. Drinking the water she hands you, you sit there wheezing for a moment in silence.

“I guess you…really like Chinese food?” Charlie looks somewhat disturbed by your display. Vaggie looks openly disgusted.

It takes you a moment to catch your breath, but when you do, you look at Charlie, blinking the tears out of your eyes.

“Does…is all food like that?” You start coughing again and go back to your water.

“Like, uh, what?” Charlie

“Like….” You can’t put the idea into words, it’s like trying to describe a color you have never seen, the idea just doesn’t translate into speech, “I don’t know, like _that_.”

“I…have you,” Charlie pauses, looking at the box you tipped over in your attempt to breathe, and back to your face, “have you not, like, _eaten_ before?”

You consider your answer for a moment. You have eaten, and ambrosia was always satisfying, but it didn’t… _taste_ like that. In comparison, ambrosia didn’t taste like _anything_. 

Deciding honesty is your best option, you attempt to explain to Charlie.

“Angels eat ambrosia. It’s…well its nothing like that. Ambrosia sustains you but that was…it had _taste_. I can’t exactly explain the difference but…”

“So you _admit_ you’re an angel!” Vaggie slams her hands on the table, startling you and causing you to choke all over again.

Charlie pats your back sympathetically and shoots a look you can’t see at Vaggie, who sits back down.

“I—” You cough again before finally getting control of your breathing. “I though you both knew what I am…was.” You look back and forth between Charlie and Vaggie trying to gauge what exactly is going on here. 

Charlie sighs and sits back in her chair.

“Well, that’s the thing. I was pretty sure you were an angel when I saw your wings, and how you healed from your injuries, but you’re a little…different, from the **fallen** angel I know.”

You pause your efforts to scrape the food back into your box so you can continue eating, and look at Charlie in confusion.

“You…you _know_ an angel?”

“Yeah,” Charlie scratches the back of her head and shrugs, “I guess you wouldn’t know who I am but, uh, my dad is **fallen** too.”

You stare at Charlie’s face, trying to parse through what she said. Her _dad_ is **fallen**? There are a number of angels that **fell** in the original war, it’s not impossible that some of them survived. 

But, her features, her resemblance to a Cherubim.

Only one **fallen** is confirmed to be alive in hell.

“Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” Charlie looks a bit like a kicked dog.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…” You can’t resist the urge to glance around the room before lowering your voice, “ _Lucifer?”_

Charlie smiles and shrugs in a way that tells you she doesn’t want this to be a big deal, but you’re not at all sure how this could be anything _but_ a big deal. Lucifer is not only the _king_ of hell, but also the “monster under the bed” for Angels. Lucifer’s story is told to every young angel, and every time a young angel does wrong they are threatened with “Lucifer will come and take you away if you don’t be good.”

The threat is, you suppose, a bit of a misdirection, given that it was _heaven_ who banished you, not Lucifer who stole you away.

But still, the _child of Lucifer_ , of all demons, this is the one willing to help a **fallen**. 

It’s both unbelievable and makes a terrible degree of sense. Charlie is unaffected by your blood, she knows what you are, she is willing to look past your identity as an angel, the literal destroyers of demons. 

But _Lucifer_.

It takes you a moment to realize that you are laughing, and that you can’t stop laughing. Charlie looks confused, Vaggie looks even more willing to jump over the table and throttle you, but you can’t help but laugh.

“The child of Lucifer, the most famous traitor of all history,” You wheeze, “just happens to save the first angel to **fall** in centuries, no, _millennia._ I’m sorry it’s just—” You dissolve again into a fit of giggles.

“Yeah, I guess it is kind of a big coincidence.” Neither Charlie nor Vaggie seems to find the situation funny.

You nod, tears streaming down your face, your wounded stomach throbbing, and try to get yourself under control as you try to explain yourself.

“Lucifer is…” you wave your hand in a searching gesture, still giggling, trying to pin down the human phrase, “He’s like the ‘boogeyman’ in heaven. I grew up with the threat of his influence. To think that he has children, and those children might attempt to befriend a Forsaken angel, it’s all terribly ironic.”

Charlie nods with interest, seemingly eager to hear about her father’s legacy in heaven. Vaggie continues to look unimpressed and mumbles something about “clichés”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at you, but to end up in the home of the daughter of the First **fallen** ,” you dissolve into giggles again, “Though I can see why you might be confused. I assume this is about my feathers and feet?”

Charlie leans in and nods hard enough that you feel a twinge of concern for her brain. Vaggie seems to be feigning disinterest, but you see her lean forward slightly in her chair. 

“Yeah, my dad doesn’t have those, he’s more…human-y.”

You scoot your chair forward and make a second, more measured attempt at eating the food set in front of you while you explain. Charlie tries to adjust your grip on your chopsticks in between bites without much success. 

“It’s a generational difference, the original batch of angels are much closer to humans in design, since then things have changed slowly…” You gesture with your chopsticks for effect, speaking around a mouthful, “Some of the older generations lack feathers or talons, but most everyone in heaven these days looks like me, with the exception of the original few.”

“Why?” Charlie asks, and then looks somewhat embarrassed, “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I’m just curious.”

“No, it’s fine.” You try to smile, but the expression is mostly lost around your mouthful, “I don’t know the precise reason. The official statement by the Seraphim—”

“The what?” Vaggie asks, cutting you off. You remind yourself that you don’t know how much demons know about the structures of heaven, so you need to be specific.

_How much should they know?_ Some part of your brain asks. 

Is it really alright to explain all the secrets of Heavenly structure to denizens of hell?

You brush the thought off as quickly as it comes to you. If they hadn’t wanted you to talk, they should have killed you instead of shaming you. The least you can do for the two people who saved you is explain yourself. 

“The Seraphim, Michael. He’s one of the original angels, I suppose you could call him a brother to Lucifer? He functions as a sort of monarch, or perhaps a dictator.” You say the last part with a bitterness you weren’t entirely aware you were capable of. You shake the feeling and try to focus on correcting your hold on the chopsticks. You think maybe you are getting the hang of it?

“The Seraphim’s official statement is that our less human form is better for interacting with humans, as it creates a separation between the divine and the mortal. Generally, it’s also understood to be a mark of rank, as essentially all the remaining original angels occupy positions of power or prestige, although no one would ever explicitly say so.”

Vaggie leans forward as you finish your explanation, placing a hand on Charlie’s arm. 

You hear Charlie suck in a quiet breath and you look up from your dwindling supply of the delicious food.

“So why exactly are you _here_? How do we know you won’t try to kill us in our sleep or that you’re not just a spy for the exterminators?” Vaggie sits back in her chair and crosses her arms. Charlie looks embarrassed, but doesn’t say anything.

_She must be wondering the same thing_.

Sighing, you place your chopsticks aside and stand up, causing Vaggie to stand too, looking at you with narrowed eyes.

_The easiest way to earn their trust is just to show them_. You untie the left knot on your makeshift robe and pull back the towel, revealing the brand on your ribs. 

“You might have seen this when you were dressing my wounds. I assume you know that it is identical to the seal which binds souls to hell?” Vaggie still looks suspicious, but Charlie seems sympathetic. “This binds me here, I can’t leave this plane without the help of powerful magic, and if I ever return to Heaven, this seal will cause me to burn. I can’t go back.” You quickly retie the knot and sit back down in your chair, picking at the last few crumbs of your meal with your fingers, giving up on the chopsticks altogether 

“I was tried before the Thrones, the judges of heaven, for disobeying heavenly doctrine and interfering in the lives of mortals. It’s complicated, but, basically I did what I thought was right, against the rules. It, um…It didn’t work out.” You shrug, feeling your throat constrict in sadness or anger or possibly some combination of the two. “I asked too many questions I suppose. They found me guilty of treason and sentenced me to **fall** , and here I am.”

Vaggie looks shocked and maybe a bit guilty, while Charlie scrambles to dig a napkin out of a white paper bag and pass it to you. 

It takes you a moment to realize that you’re crying. _Again_. You blot your face with the greasy paper and sniff miserably. 

“I can tell you the details but it’s a bit of a long story…” You don’t look up from the napkin in your lap.

“No!” Both Charlie and Vaggie say together, then after a moment, Vaggie continues,

“It’s ok, just stop crying, ok?”

“I’m sorry, I really should be thanking you both for helping me, and for letting me into your home, but I’m just making a fool of myself.” You laugh mirthlessly and look up at the two women. 

Charlie furrows her brows and pats your hands in your lap. 

“You’re not making a fool of yourself, anyone would cry if they’d been through what you have in the past few days. And this isn’t our house, not exactly.”

You tilt your head to the side, and then look around the room again briefly. She’s right, it doesn’t really resemble a house, it’s much too large.

_So then…_

“What is it?” you ask, sniffing again. 

“This,” Charlie leaps from her chair, sending it skittering across the floor and leaving you wide-eyed and startled. With a dramatic flourish she throws her hands in the air and spins, “Is the Happy Hotel!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again <3  
> First off I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has read this so far, and to all the lovely people who left Kudos and comments, and a special extra huge thank you to those who bookmarked this. I am falling in love with this fanbase more and more, especially after seeing how kind and supportive of my silly fic everyone has been.  
> Anyways, I really struggled with this chapter. Somehow I just couldn’t get in the flow of balancing Charlie and Vaggie and our angel all together in a room, and everything felt so clunky and awkward. I let this one sit for a few days before coming back to it, and I polished it up as much as I could. I can’t say I’m thrilled with the result, but it does convey all the information I wanted to convey. Honestly I have a whole new appreciation for people who write dialogue heavy stories!  
> Also, as I was writing the last chapter, I found myself wondering why exactly Lucifer doesn’t have feathers or horns like the angels we have seen! This sent me into a spiral of thinking that maybe the exterminators are different from the other angels somehow, or maybe their outfits include a mask with fake horns and feathers, and underneath they look like Lucifer? At this point though, I can’t possibly rethink my angel’s design because 1) I love her weird bird features and 2) I ALREADY PUBLISHED LIKE A DOZEN CHAPTERS I CANT GO BACK. So after I crawled out of the endless pit of anxiety that this thought caused, I decided fuck it, the first batch of angels is different from everyone else and that’s just the way it’s gonna be because this is my fic and I can botch Vivziepop’s universe if I want to!  
> So, yeah, I didn’t expect to majorly break from canon AGAIN but here we are, knee deep in creative decisions and facing the repercussions.  
> HOWEVER, I do still appreciate comments regarding canon and my canon non-compliance. A little while ago someone commented about Cherubs making an appearance in Helluva Boss, which reminded me that I need to use the word “cherubim” instead of “cherub” to keep things straight. That comment was super helpful, and it let me know that there was a point of confusion for some people, so don’t be afraid to post stuff like that even though I am kind of off the rails.  
> Anyways, I love you guys! Stay safe out there!


	15. She Who Saves a Single Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All rights to Vivziepop for the wonderful Hazbin Hotel!
> 
> In this chapter, you get some good news and some bad news...

Chapter 14: She Who Saves a Single Soul

* * *

“The Happy… _Hotel_?” The word is familiar, in your head you vaguely picture a big white human building with rows of shuttered windows and a gravel road for carriages. 

_The Green Park Inn_ you remember, just half a mile from a little church in the mountains, run by a kindly older gentleman with a penchant for homemade gin. He had a shrine to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. 

_That’s what a hotel is_ , you remember in a flash, a place for travelers to stay. You had seen a few during your time on earth. 

That would explain the seemingly endless rooms. But not the overall state of disrepair.

“Yes!” Charlie is practically vibrating with excitement. You feel a little guilty for mentally questioning the run-down building, so instead you try your best to look interested.

“The exterminations kill hundreds of demons every year, it breaks my heart to see my people live in fear of yearly violence. If population is the problem, I thought, why not have an alternate solution? A more humane way to curb population growth?” Charlie seems to be in her zone, pacing and gesturing. It may be your imagination, but the very lights in the hotel seem to be dimming and focusing on her in a single bright halo. This speech seems a little…rehearsed.

“Redemption!” Charlie halts abruptly and spreads her arms wide. “The Happy Hotel works towards this goal, it’s a Hotel that rehabilitates sinners! Through good works we can send souls to heaven and end the need for exterminations!”

_Redemption?_ The idea is…unexpected to say the least. Redeeming souls that have already received heaven’s judgement, turning sinners into pious angels?

“And now with your help, we’ll know exactly how to get there! You’re the perfect person to help us work towards heaven!” Charlie practically skips towards you, the spotlight following her and lighting you up on the process. 

_How is she doing that to the lights?_

_Wait, did she say…_

“Me?” You ask, looking up at Charlie, aghast. You glance sideways and see Vaggie looking exasperated, leaning back in her folding chair. “You want me to help you…send souls to heaven?”

“Yes!” Charlie does an adorable little hop in place, nodding furiously. “It could work couldn’t it?”

The look she gives you melts your heart. Redeeming souls in hell?

Strictly speaking, many of the souls condemned to hell are done so on a very small margin of sin, this you know. Theoretically, shifting the balance towards virtue shouldn’t be mathematically impossible. 

And judgements have been known to have been overturned on occasion. Sometimes souls in purgatory required the input of two or more Thrones if their deeds were especially complex. Checking and rechecking the math was frequently done. But you had only ever heard of a decision being updated while the soul was _still in purgatory._

Hell is another story. 

And all of this on top of the simple perversity of the desire to enter heaven. Given your new status as Forsaken, you can’t in good faith _recommend_ heaven as a place for souls to strive towards. Heaven has its own problems, you know this all too well.

And yet.

_Is it impossible?_

You aren’t sure. It seems far-fetched, but nothing in your knowledge of heavenly doctrine expressly forbids such a thing. After all, hell is a cesspool of vice, souls are meant to accrue more vices in hell, such is the design. To reject this and work for redemption. 

You find the idea oddly noble, intensely _human_. 

You recall all the times humans spoke of _blessings in disguise_.

To view hell itself as a test, something to overcome, it was the logical extreme of the idea of a _blessing in disguise_. 

You look up at Charlie, who is silhouetted in the beam of light she seems to bring with her.

You realize that you _want_ this girl’s plan to succeed, or at the very least you want her to try. 

“Well,” You begin slowly, choosing your words as carefully as you can, “As far as I know nothing expressly _forbids_ it—”

Charlie literally squeals before spinning away from you and seating herself at a mysteriously unfamiliar piano. 

_Had that been there a second ago?_

You don’t have time to really consider it before two sheep-like demons materialize out of thin air, wielding instruments, and bursting into tune.

_Is she…going to sing_?

The answer is immediately a clear _yes_ , as Charlie bursts into song, accompanied by the little demons she so casually summoned.

You look to Vaggie, hoping for some clarity, but she just looks on with a surprisingly fond smile. 

“ _Everything happens for a reason!_ ” Charlie croons, the sheep demons backing her up “ _And now you’re here to put an end to this rainy season,_ ”

In spite of the confusing and frankly jarring effect created by this unexpected performance, you find yourself smiling and humming along to the music. On earth, you were always enamored of the music of humans. Their songs were always so rich and textured, in comparison angelic choirs were flat. Charlie’s performance, while impromptu and strange, is catchy, and you can’t help but smile in the face of her sheer enthusiasm.

“ _Together, nothing can stop us”_ Charlie draws a somewhat unwilling Vaggie into her performance, dancing around her while Vaggie noncommittally sways back and forth. 

You zone out as Charlie sings on about the power of teamwork. 

Her dream is undoubtedly noble, and certainly ground-breaking, but you know that the chances of success are depressingly low. You yourself were thrown out of heaven for your resistance to and criticism of the inflexibility of heavenly judgement, for the unwillingness to bend or reevaluate the rules. 

You feel a sense of comradery with Charlie, her enthusiasm for redemption and her trust in the mercy of heaven reminds you of a younger version of yourself. Your belief in heaven has been damaged, but for Charlie, that hope is still very much alive. 

You wonder briefly if you should try to tell her of the realities of heaven, and the improbability of her plan. 

But, as you watch Charlie swing Vaggie in her arms, singing along to the piano, you truly can’t find the will to dampen her enthusiasm. Not right now, not after she has so greatly helped you. Somehow you don’t think you’ve earned the right. 

Eventually, Charlie’s song winds down, and the piano and back-up singers blink out of existence just as quietly as they entered. Charlie is sweating and laughing, while Vaggie tries to pin her down and retie her hair, which has shaken loose from its low ponytail.

When they finally sit, you fix Charlie with a level stare.

“Charlie, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me so far, and I would be more than happy to repay your kindness by helping you with this…project. But I have to ask, are you sure you want me to stay here? Nearly every demon I encountered out there wanted me for lunch, and even if they didn’t want to eat me, I can’t imagine any _other_ demon being particularly friendly if they knew what I am.”

“Of course I want your help!” Charlie springs at you, knocking her chair over _again_ and wrapping you in a rather startling hug. “You’re my friend, even if you didn’t want to help with the hotel I would love to have you stay here!”

Charlie’s kindness takes your breath away, or maybe it’s the crushing pressure of her bear hug, but either way you are shocked by the extent of her compassion. To think a demon, _any_ demon, much less the daughter of Lucifer himself, would put themselves in immeasurable danger to protect someone like you, the thought brings tears to your eyes and makes you hug Charlie back as hard as you can.

“Charlie, that still doesn’t change the fact that she’s _literally_ headline news.” Vaggie sets Charlie’s forgotten chair back on its feet and crosses her arms. “If she stays here, we need a plan to make sure no one finds out who or _what_ she is.”

Charlie nods sagely, but the gleam in her eyes tells you that her mind is made up, and no amount of measured reasoning or caution will dampen her enthusiasm. You can practically see her brain churning out plans for rehabilitation with you in tow. 

But Vaggie does have a point, your charred wings are something of a dead giveaway, and the brand on your ribs, coupled with the new Saint Peter’s cross on your back certainly don’t help your bid for anonymity. On top of that, even the smallest cut and any nearby demon would be instantly alerted to your identity, or at the very least, insatiably hungry for your flesh. Neither of which are a good outcome, for you or for Charlie and her hotel.

_Wait_ , you stop dead in your mental tracks, _did Vaggie say headline news?_

“I’m sorry, Vaggie, you said _news_?”

“Well yeah. Angels don’t exactly **fall** to hell every weekend, and your blood is insanely valuable. There’s all sorts of fucked up voodoo rituals that require angel blood, plus rumor has it that even a drop can cure any injury—” Vaggie looks at you like all of this should be obvious.

“Vaggie!” Charlie cuts in awkwardly, clapping a hand over the smaller demon’s mouth and smiling at you. “It’s not as bad as she’s making it sound, I mean they don’t even have a clue where you are, they think you landed in Wonderland of all places, which is absurd.”

“Wonderland?” You ask, raising an eyebrow when Vaggie appears to lick Charlie’s hand, making her withdraw it with a squeal and wipe it furiously on her slacks. 

“Yeah, it’s like, hell in hell” Vaggie shrugs while Charlie complains in the background, “Basically its where all the craziest and most depraved demons gather, the ones that can’t make it in the city cause they’re too big or too crazy. Plus there’s a ton of hell creatures and who knows what else. Thankfully it’s like 30 miles out of town. I pity anyone who lands there, cause they sure as hell won’t make it out.”

“Is it out in the desert?” You ask.

Charlie looks up at you curiously, while Vaggie responds, “Yeah it’s a wasteland out there. But Charlie is right, everyone is looking for you in the wrong spot right now, but we don’t know how long that will last before…” Vaggie trails off before snapping her head up to look at you, still sitting in your chair.

“Wait, you aren’t saying…?” Vaggie actually gapes. 

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but that does sound like where I landed. And it took a really long time to walk to the city…” You shrug.

Charlie looks abjectly horrified by your suggestion, while Vaggie steps forward and glares down at you. The effect is intimidating, even though you know yourself to be taller than her standing. 

“Are you saying that you _walked_ 30 miles to the city from fucking _Wonderland_? Wait, forget that, are you saying that you _landed_ in Wonderland and just _walked_ out?”

“Well, I didn’t _walk_ out per say, there was a lot of running, and some fighting. I knew I couldn’t stay there so I just…left, I suppose.” You aren’t sure where the point of contention is, or what to say to reassure the two demons in front of you. “But it’s fine, I made it, and now I’m here, it could have been worse.”

“It literally could not have been worse,” Vaggie throws her hands up and turns away from you to collapse back into her chair with a muttered “ _esta loca.”_

You look from Vaggie to Charlie, hoping the taller demon will offer some explanation. Charlie, for her part, seems calmer, but is blanched even whiter than usual. 

“Sorry, it’s just…Wonderland is arguably the _most_ dangerous place in Hell. While I guess that would explain your injuries, I think Vaggie and I are just a little…surprised that you were able to leave there unharmed and unnoticed.”

Well, it’s not as though you had been trying to make waves. You were injured when you landed, the fact that you left the area as quickly and quietly as you had seems fairly intuitive to you. And on top of that it’s not as though most of the demons in this “Wonderland” did much other than kill _each other_ once they found you missing. You think these two might be blowing the situation out of proportion. 

“Well, my arrival aside, Vaggie you said that I’m _on the news_ , does that mean that demons are looking for me?”

Vaggie doesn’t seem inclined to talk much more than she has already, so you , once again, turn to Charlie again for explanation. 

“Well…” She looks anywhere but at you, “angels don’t **fall** very often and—”

“Show me.” You interject.

You have no idea how bad this may or may not be, but you know that if you are going to even consider staying here with Charlie and Vaggie, you need to have a full measure of how serious things are.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea” Charlie hedges.

“Please.” You say, looking at her head-on until she returns your gaze. After a long moment of hesitation, she finally sighs and walks to the far wall where a television is mounted just over her head.

“Do you want the remote?” Vaggie asks, now picking at her (likely cold) meal.

“No. It’s on every channel.” Charlie sighs, reaching up to turn on the TV.

Your stomach drops as soon as you see the image. Across the screen is plastered what looks like aerial footage of your crash site. The crater is literally swarming with demons, even from the height of the camera you can see the bodies writhing throughout the impact area and extending out of sight. It looks like even more demons than before, you feel nauseous just thinking about what would have happened to you in a group that large. 

The announcer is speaking at a rapid pace that you can barely understand, but you grasp that the search for the “next Holy Grail” is still ongoing, with few leads. 

You’re not sure if you should be flattered or offended.

As you watch, there is a commotion below in the crowd. A red swarm seems to overtake a section of the image, before something from scuffle rockets up towards the camera. You catch a brief glimpse of the terrified face of a familiar looking small red creature with big ears hurtling towards the screen before the image erupts into static. 

Charlie reaches up and changes the channel with one hand, and the screen shifts to a room filled with clamoring demons, the front of which has a board with various rapidly changing numbers next to names. It takes a moment, but you eventually gather from the shouting that this is a gambling pool, taking bets on who would “bleed the angel like a stuck pig.” You aren’t sure what the value of money in hell is exactly, but the numbers alone make you queasy. 

Charlie switches the channels one more time, and this one shows a blonde female and a shorter demon in a gas mask reading off a sheet of paper. Behind them is the image of an insect-like demon in a fluffy fur coat and heart-shaped glasses who appears to be waving a handful of money. 

“This just in, the kingpin Valentino has just updated his bounty on the recently **fallen** angel, offering $200,000 for any information leading to the angel’s capture and $1.3 million for the angel’s intact body, making his offer the current highest bid, superseding the previous bid of overlord Vox. Wow I sure feel sorry for that angel!” The blonde demon’s head cracks loudly to one side as it cackles.

“Oh Katie, no one feels sorry for that fuckup” The masked demon chimes in, “But I sure would kill for a taste.”

The blonde demon reels on its co-host and looks ready to attack, before Charlie switches the TV off.

You sit for a moment in shock, staring at the black screen, before you are able to turn to Charlie. 

You understand now why she didn’t want to show you.

“A bounty?” You look at Charlie, who seems supremely uncomfortable, “for my intact _body_?”

“It’s not that bad, Valentino puts out bounties on lots of people he doesn’t like…” Charlie tries.

“Charlie, you can’t seriously want me to stay here with _that_ kind of attention on me. What if someone learns what I am? What if that “Valentino” realizes I’m here. You shouldn’t risk your dream for someone like me.” You think back to your own attendance of the extermination, all those years ago, and feel a fresh wave of guilt.

“Well, I’m not worried about Valentino or the overlords coming _here_. I’m the _princess_ of hell, my dad owns this place. Being princess doesn’t get me a lot, but my dad’s name on a building does mean something. No overlord would just waltz in.” Charlie sounds confident, but her body language still seems tense.

_Her dad…_

“And what if Lucifer finds out I’m here?” You ask slowly.

Charlie stiffens perceptibly, and flounders. 

If Lucifer decides he wants you for whatever reason, or even if he _doesn’t_ want you near his daughter, just from Charlie’s reaction you know that that would be the end.

It’s not that you’re afraid of death, necessarily. But you can imagine that death would be a paradise compared to what some of these demons would do to you. 

You shudder.

There is a loud scraping noise to your right, and you turn to see Vaggie standing from her chair and walking towards the two of you. 

“Look, Lucifer won’t find out if we’re careful. If you really want to do this, we just need to have a plan, okay?”

You can’t help but be a little surprised. Vaggie seems to care for Charlie, and she did help tend to your injuries from what you can gather, but until now she hasn’t actually stuck her neck out for you, instead merely seeming to tolerate your presence. 

“Besides,” she continues, “I think the interest will calm down a bit after tomorrow night”

Charlie smiles tightly and lets Vaggie wrap an arm around her waist, seeming to relax.

“You’re right! There’s no point in worrying, besides Dad wouldn’t have a reason to care about some random fallen angel, and even less of a reason to visit this place.” Charlie laughs awkwardly.

“Exactly, now it’s getting late _cariña_ , why don’t you go up and get ready for bed and I’ll clean up here? We can worry about all of this tomorrow.” Vaggie pats Charlie on the shoulder and angles her towards the stairs.

_At least I know it’s evening,_ although that means that you slept for nearly 4 straight days, which is deeply concerning considering some of your injuries still haven’t healed.

_Also, cariña? Are they a couple?_ You question this for about half a second before remembering Charlie’s kind words from yesterday. _It doesn’t matter who you love_. She was right. You need to stop letting your angelic training tell you how to feel, besides these two obviously care for one another. 

You make a note to try and stop your divine prejudices whenever they decide to rear their heads. 

“Of course,” Charlie smiles and turns to you, looking tired, “And I’ll go find some pajamas for you, I’ll put them in your room, okay?”

“I appreciate that, thank you.” You smile back at Charlie as she walks away and disappears up the grand staircase.

Once she is out of sight, you turn your attention to Vaggie, who has begun to clean the food containers off the table. 

“Thank you for letting me stay here, I know you don’t fully trust me—”

“Of course I don’t. But there’s no reason _not_ to let you stay.” Vaggie interrupts you with a shrug. “If no one finds out, Charlie is happy, and if they do it’s free publicity. Even if her dad finds you and decides he wants you gone, it’s your head, not Charlie’s. She’s safe either way.”

Vaggie moves to throw things in the trashcan before walking back towards the stairs.

You can’t say you’re exactly surprised. This explanation makes more sense than her sudden impulse to trust you, and frankly her pragmatism is admirable. Oddly, her explanation soothes some of your guilt over imposing on Charlie.

“You must care about Charlie a lot.” You add.

“I do.” Vaggie replies, pausing for a moment as though she will say something else, before seeming to think better of it and starting up the stairs in silence. 

“Wait,” You call after her, remembering something she had said earlier, “What happens tomorrow night?”

Vaggie turns to face you with a look of mild shock.

“You don’t know?” She asks.

You shake your head.

Vaggie’s face lights up in a dangerous smile that makes your skin crawl.

“It’s the extermination.” She says simply, and disappears up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again guys!   
>  Writing dialogue for everyone was a little easier the second time around, but I still struggle to keep the flow going. I didn’t expect this fic to be such a challenge, but I’m kind of loving it. Vaggie ended up a little more chatty in this chapter, since I didn’t want to cut her out just because I was scared of writing her, so I hope her voice stayed clear and consistent.   
>  Aside from that, I just LOVE Vaggie and Charlie’s relationship, it’s such a fun dynamic. That’s one of the reasons I strayed away from a Charlie/Alastor ship (no shade to anyone who does ship them ofc, we sail every ship in this harbor), because I just felt so weird splitting up Charlie and Vaggie. In my brain it was easier to write a whole new character than to not write Charlie/Vaggie together lol. I hope you all enjoyed my take on them <3  
>  And oof! That reveal at the end, I just can’t let our angel catch a break can I? I’m sorry but she’s just so fun to torture, I think Alastor and I will grow to share that opinion :3  
>  Anyways, see you all in the next one!   
>  (Also P.S we use dollars in hell because dollars are obviously the most evil of all currency mwahaha)


	16. Not an Encouraging Opening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you face some dark parts of yourself as you prepare for the extermination...

Chapter 15: Not an Encouraging Opening

* * *

At first, it’s Vaggie’s smile that pins you to your chair. 

It isn’t until long after she has disappeared into the second floor, leaving the room in darkness behind her and you sitting alone in your plastic folding chair that you internalize her actual words.

_The Extermination? Tomorrow?_

Your mind reels to catch up with this new piece of information. 

You know time works differently in hell than it does on earth and in heaven. Sinners were meant to suffer their fate for an eternity, and time in the nine circles accordingly moves at just over half the speed of time elsewhere. This also means that the exact date of the extermination is in constant flux in relation to the date in heaven due to the desynchronization. Young exterminators often were both amazed and pleased to see that a nearly 12 hour rampage in hell took less than a good night’s sleep in the world above. 

So it would be no great stretch to assume that you had lost track of the precise extermination date. You were vaguely aware that it was happening _soon_ , your brief time incarcerated in heaven before your trial had told you as much, as the Archangels guarding your room talked about their plans to compete for the highest body count essentially _ad nauseum_. 

But _tomorrow_?

The thought sends your newly discovered stomach plummeting through the floor of the hotel and into what you can only assume is a _tenth_ circle of hell. 

_What am I going to do?_ _What can I do_?

You realize that, on some level, you had been holding out hope that an extermination would be your chance to redeem yourself, to talk to those who had cast you out, to somehow reinstate your previous position, or at the very least, petition for a retrial. 

Facing down that part of yourself now, in the dim red glow of the hotel lobby, you find that you are disgusted by your own desires. Looking those hopes in the eyes, you them for what they are. Cowardice. A desire to escape from the fate to which you know you are bound.

You don’t even _want_ to go back, what is there for you in heaven now? Even if you could somehow erase your branding, your shame, you can’t erase you doubts You don’t _want_ to. Too much has happened, too much that shaped you.

_A girl crying on the ground outside of her house, sitting in a pile of her belongings. Among the pile is a rosary, glittering in early morning sun_

_That same girl on a different ground, quiet this time, a syringe laying in her limp hand. Another girl lies next to her, skin cold, lips blue._

_The girl on the ground for the last time, staring up at a group of men. In her pocket is a knife, and in her eyes something long suffering finally breaks._

No, you don’t want to forget. You can’t. 

And because of that heaven has no place for you.

And a foolish half-formed hope that an extermination might be your ticket out of a fate worse than death, you know that such cowardice is an insult to those you failed. 

Disgusted with yourself and itching all over again in your new skin, you stand and push in the folding chair before hurrying up the stairs. Your side aches, dully, but already the pain seems better than it had a few hours ago. 

_Small favors_. You huff out a single joyless laugh and press your ruined wings into your cramping side. 

But the exertion clears your mind a bit, which brings you back to the beginning of your dilemma. The extermination. Tomorrow.

Digging through your perverse hope you find something under it. Something dark and angry, something you have only felt once before. _Hatred_. While part of you wants to slink away from this new body, this new life, to fall at the knees of even the lowest ranked angel and beg forgiveness, a much larger, much more insidious part of you is out for blood. You see a brief flash of yourself atop a pile of Archangels, literally ripping their hypocrisy out of them with a stolen weapon. 

The image is satisfying. Horribly so, frighteningly so. 

You don’t know where this part of you has come from. 

The last time you had felt hate it had felt to _justified_ , so _righteous_. But now, looking your hatred in the face, it doesn’t feel that way at all. It feels ugly and twisted and pointless, and so _foreign_.

You want to blame this extremity on your new body, your new emotions, even your surroundings, but somehow you know that the seed of this hate has been in you for a long time. Dampened by the veil of your divinity, yes, and sharper now that you are something _unholy_ , but it is yours all the same. 

_I don’t have to give in to this_ , you tell yourself. This hatred, you don’t have to accept it, it may be yours, but you can disown it. It doesn’t control you.

You have paused at the top of the landing, somewhat out of breath. You turn abruptly and head for the door to your room.

_Besides_ , even if you did, _for some unholy reason_ , want to go on some bloody rampage against _your own kind_ , you _can’t_. Whatever your feelings, you can’t ignore your injuries, and while your stomach will heal quickly, it certainly won’t do so by tomorrow night. And on top of that you cannot forget about your new _limited_ strength. In your current form you can’t imagine you would stand much of a chance against a single Archangel.

Maybe a 9th choir rookie. Maybe.

But definitely not an Archangel.

Your hand hovers above the cool brass of the door handle of room 221 and that verse pops into your head again, unwelcome as before.

_For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them._

You sigh and open the door to your room, noticing that Charlie has laid out fresh clothes on your bed, alongside a fresh set of sheets. 

That verse, Peter 2:21.

Your banishment hadn’t just been for your transgressions with mortals. You had questioned the very fabric of heavenly doctrine. In your final moments in heaven, you found you couldn’t keep quiet a moment longer, and all the anxieties and doubts of decades had poured from you. 

“ _The exterminations are immoral. What are those sinners condemned for? Many of them, for next to nothing, and yet they are kept alongside murderers and slaughtered like pigs. And for what, population control? We all know hell is an endless void, it lacks for many things, but space is not one of them.”_

_You narrow your eyes at Michael, where he sits elevated behind the Thrones, looking down on you through pristine white lashes._

“ _You’re frightened of the demons. They outnumber us. You kill them because they threaten you, they threaten this.” You wave a shackled hand to the gathered courtroom. “We wouldn’t have this problem if we protected the innocent, if we let more than 1% of souls through our gates.”_

You aren’t sure you can keep your mouth shut again. Not after so many years, not after _finally_ speaking your mind. 

And now, to sit by while the lower choirs murder hundreds of souls, many of which are trapped here under the combined weight of a thousand meaningless transgressions. 

You pull on the clothes Charlie has left for you, another baggy T shirt and flannel pants, letting your wings hang out below the hem of your shirt, and make your bed as best as you can in the dark room. 

Can you sit through this extermination? Just let it happen in front of you?

You know Charlie, Vaggie, and Angel should be safe, they have a place to hide, and exterminators rarely enter sealed buildings. They don’t have to, there is plenty of fodder left abandoned and defenseless in the streets.

Gritting your teeth, you climb into your sloppily made bed and close your eyes, squeezing them until you see stars.

Can you ignore this?

You don’t know that you can.

But you know that you will have to.

…

The city is bustling from where you stand, unseen, in the corner of a marketplace. Although the humans cannot see you, they pour around you like water around a stone, sensing and moving around your presence unconsciously. You have always found the effect somewhat disconcerting, to be present and yet, unseen.

Since the death of your **priest** , you have been assigned to a new area, in a far distant corner of the earth. The distance is comforting, but the effect is not complete, and behind your closed eyes you can still see the haggard face of the young man in the rain, watching you as though he could _see_. As though he knew how you had failed him. 

You shake your head idly and refocus on the sounds around you. Your new assignment is in a far more complex area, and the church and leader you are assigned to protect are surrounded by blasphemous outside influences. To quell the spread of harmful rhetoric, you have taken it upon yourself to research the enemy, hence your foray into this marketplace.

Above you, a sandstone tower looms, you know this place to be a house of worship for a pagan sect, you hope to investigate their practices through attending a session, although the distance from your assigned church has you anxious. 

You are unwilling to repeat your mistakes, no sins will be committed here because of your lack of oversight. 

Suddenly, a musical voice fills the courtyard. You had heard this sound first on your descent into this place, a gripping music, wholly unlike the hymns you had heard previously, and yet also beautifully and soulfully melodic. The music, you had quickly discovered, was actually a pagan call to prayer, sounding five times a day throughout the city. The beauty of this sound was unlike anything you had heard before, it had saddened you immensely to learn that it was in praise of sin and false gods. 

All around you, people in simple robes sift from the crowd and flock towards the hall of worship. Blending seamlessly in with the group, you step inside the building and begin your inspection. 

What you find is, well, a temple. Not at all unlike what you are overseeing halfway across town. The walls are decorated with beautiful mosaic work, while the gilded ceiling is supported by a multitude of low but delicate red stone archways. The effect is, frankly, awe inspiring, it draws your eye up and out in much the same way your chosen church so expertly does. 

The service, too, is familiar. Instead of pews, worshippers crouch on rows of mats, facing a speaker, chanting in hymn-like spoken song. 

_Raised pulpit_ , you recall from your training, the maintaining of physical hierarchy between the worshipper and the source of divine knowledge. 

The space is clean, immaculately so, and you notice hanging strings of glass vases with candles, lighting the room with a warm glow. Michael did so love the use of candles in worship, this place seemed to have achieved the same effect with these strange hanging lamps. 

Allowing your mind to relax, you listen to the words of the hymn-song, and the spoken words of the leader positioned under a decorated nave towards which all the worshippers face. The phrasing is…unfamiliar, but you recognize many of the structures used in the worshipful speech, and realize that the group must be speaking in quotations from some sort of religious book. 

_Deference to established canon._ You think slowly. In fact, the more you hear the more you recognize the lessons being taught and the praises being sung. They are, familiar, within guidelines even. _Love thy neighbor, worship under the one true god,_ all of it is so acutely similar to the lessons taught in your own assigned house of worship.

But this place, this temple, it is pagan is it not?

You look around once again, and notice the distinct lack of crosses.

And yet…the whole affair is so familiar, a pious sermon in a different robe. 

Feeling off-balance, you turn on your heel and move back out the door and into the open-air marketplace. Even out here in the open the dusty air is suffocating, too heavy in your lungs. 

From a stand, you leap up onto the roof of a nearby stall and across to the top of the pagan temple. A _mosque_ they had called it. From there you launch yourself into the air, rising as quickly as possible into the afternoon sky.

15%. Less than 1/5 of the current human population practice the preferred religious canon. The percentage fluctuates somewhat, but then again so does the human population, which more recently seems to be expanding at an unbridled pace. 

15%, and nearly all of those practitioners still sinners destined for hell. The numbers are…unfavorable, you had always thought so, but heaven had never expressed displeasure at the global trends, you had always had the impression that such values were to be expected. 

But, those worshippers. Their sermon is so _similar_ , their doctrine almost _identical._ The differences between that group and the one under your divine protection seems, well, purely aesthetic. 

You have a checklist, you know. And that place had not been a perfect score, but it seemed to have fared better than other _approved_ locations you had heard tell of. And the sensation, the worshipful feeling in the humans, it had been so _achingly familiar_. 

The differences…surely they had to run deeper than that. Surely divine judgement was based on more than just the correct symbols. 

_Surely?_

You land on the roof of your assigned _church_ , and watch as a crippled man gathers his things and begins to wheel himself home on a low rolling cart. The man comes to listen nearly every Sunday, but you know his cart cannot travel when the winds are high or the heat is unbearable. You also know that every missed sermon is dragging him closer and closer to damnation. 

_Surely there has to be more than this?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again, sorry for the delay on this one.  
>  We got some more flashbacks to our angel’s past here, like I said, they have seen some shit. For transparency, I have personally never attended a service (probably not the right word) at a mosque, so my description of one in this chapter is based purely on google searches and a few YouTube videos. I understand that not all mosques have a “leader” for prayer, and that “mosque lamps” (the stained glass lamps with candles described in this chapter) are pretty uncommon in the 21st century. I chose to highlight the aspects present in ~some~ mosques that I myself found similar to structures in catholic worship because these things would be the most confusing to our angel. I am not trying to make any broad statements about the practical similarities between religions, and definitely not trying to make any statements about “correct” worship. These descriptions are ONLY to highlight the arbitrary nature of heaven in the world of Hazbin Hotel SPECIFICALLY.   
>  That being said, as always, let me know if I’m way off-base about any of my descriptions! I love your feedback <3  
>  Some notes on head canon: In Dapper Dresser (another shout out to that wonderful fic that inspired me to try my hand at posting) the authors mention that time moves much more slowly in Hell than on earth. This seemed like a fantastic idea to me, especially because sinners are said to rot for eternity. Its diabolical genius, honestly. So in my personal canon, time runs at ~about~ 6/10 speed in hell, or just over half as fast as on earth, and time runs at the same speed on earth as in heaven. Our poor angel’s trial was more than a week ago in heaven.   
>  Also in reference to the dream sequence, if it wasn’t clear, the angel is reassigned to an area with religious diversity, I was picturing something like Turkey, and visits a mosque where they are struck by the similarities to Christianity/Catholicism. For the purposes of my fic, I am assuming that Catholicism is the “preferred” religious canon, and the further you get from that, the worse the “sin” is. Honestly I was a bit surprised to learn that 15% of the world is Catholic, and that most of that is in Latin and South America. In America, Protestantism is so much more common that I just subconsciously assumed Catholicism was uncommon elsewhere, which is very much not the case! This fanfiction has me challenging all sorts of weird biases I have lol.   
>  Descriptions for this mosque are based loosely on the cathedral mosque in Cordoba Spain and the beautiful Isfahan mosque.  
>  See you all in the next one!


	17. To See Nobody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you try to distract yourself...

Chapter 16: “To See Nobody”

* * *

You’re not sure how long you sleep, but you wake feeling exhausted.

Your return to reality is slow, unwilling. Even after you wake you stay in bed trying to ignore the soft, almost pink light creeping through the heavy curtains. Eventually though, your skin starts to feel sweaty and the sheets get uncomfortable as they scratch against your legs until the itch to move finally pushes you upright. 

You hiss in a breath and clamp an arm to your side as you stand, expecting a stab of pain, but it doesn’t come. Instead you feel a dull burning sensation which starts to fade almost immediately. Despite your reflex, it takes you a moment to actually register _why_ you expect to be met with pain.

 _Right_ , you remember with a sigh, _stab wound._ Gingerly, you lift the edge of your shirt up with your wings and inspect the puncture. It looks far better than yesterday, scabbed over and flaking white on the edges. You think in another day or two the stitches can probably come out. 

_They might have come out already if you hadn’t torn them_.

“ _Already”?_

You remember in a flash why you are so eager to get your stitches out.

_The Extermination._

You shake your head violently to dislodge the thought. You have already been through this. There is _nothing you can do_. You don’t need to spend hours agonizing over your powerlessness, you need to accept your own limitations and move on. 

_This room is still a mess_ , you latch onto the first task you think of. Now that you’re awake, you can find Charlie and try to clean this place up.

You sigh again and drift towards the bathroom. Idly running your hands over your horns. The feel of the jagged left end is still unusual, and you can’t help but run your fingers over it, trying to imagine the ghost of the shape it used to have. 

In the bathroom you wash your face and investigate the pile of things Charlie appears to have left for you the night before. Among them, a fresh set of towels and a toothbrush. You silently thank the Maker that you recognize at least half of what’s in this bathroom. You can’t imagine having ask Charlie the function of a toothbrush, or a shower, or heaven forbid a toilet.

You still can’t quite figure out the complex assortment soaps and lotions stashed under the sink, but you figure that you can get by with just a bar of soap. 

_Who knew demons had such complex bathing practices?_ Honestly you prefer the militaristic setup of heaven, simplicity and efficiency. Perhaps all these frills are a holdover from humanity? You did note during your decades on and off earth that humans have a certain flair for the dramatic, if their music and church design is anything to go by.

But then again, they share that excess in both their sins and virtues. Humans never could do anything in moderation, that you saw. 

But somehow that was part of their charm. 

All the soaps, however, you think you can do without.

Deciding against constructing another makeshift robe out of bath towels, you opt instead to stay in your pajamas and go find Charlie. 

_And maybe clean this room_.

Stepping out into the hallway, it strikes you as even more foreboding than before. The early morning light is much softer than the harsh red glow from last night, almost a blush across the carpets in your room. But here in the hall, that blushing light doesn’t reach, and instead the red carpets spiral off into indistinct shadow in either direction. 

_Perhaps I can suggest that Charlie invest in more lights._ You rationalize that if she wants to work towards heaven, you can probably convince her that better lighting is a good step in that direction. 

Annoyingly, the light above your door flickers and dies. 

_Ignore it._ You instead turn on one foot and head down the hallway in the direction of Charlie’s room, trying not to glance at the swimming shadows in every nook of the crooked hallway. 

You knock firmly on Charlie’s door, self-consciously adjusting the collar of your T-shirt and rearranging your wings under the thin cotton. 

There is a moment of silence, and then a quiet groan from the other side of the door. Concerned you knock again, more loudly this time. 

In response, another groan and a loud bang, like someone bumping into a heavy table.

“¡ _Hijo de puta_! ¿ _Quién está en la puerta a este hora?_ I’m coming!”

 _Oh_ , you had forgotten that this was Vaggie’s room too.

_Also, what does she mean “at this hour?”_

You realize you don’t actually know what time it is, just that the sun is rising, which could mean that it is _very_ early.

You briefly consider turning tail and running away, but before you can, the door opens to a very bedraggled and _very_ tired Vaggie. Your predator/prey instincts tell you to hold still and pray she won’t decide to eat you whole. 

Vaggie squints up at you murderously before slamming the door in your very startled face. Behind the door, you here more movement, some muffled sleepy conversation, and then a very loud and Charlie-like squeak before the door flies open just as quickly as it had shut. 

This time you see Charlie, wearing a plain tank top and no pants, and looking enthusiastic despite her sleep-glazed eyes.

“Good morning!” She chirps at you. Over her shoulder you hear Vaggie groan and a shape rolls over in bed, snuggling deeper into the covers. Charlie appears to either not hear this over the sounds of her own enthusiasm, or chooses to ignore it completely. 

“Um, good morning,” You say much more quietly, “I’m sorry to wake you, I didn’t realize it was so early.”

“No don’t worry about it! What’s up?” Charlie looks undeterred, and like she is rapidly returning to her normal state of enthusiastic boundless energy.

“Well I was wondering—” You start.

“SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR!” Vaggie’s voice comes muffled but sufficiently enraged from the bed, and Charlie looks sympathetically over her shoulder and motions for you to wait.

She swings the door mostly shut and retreats into her room, only to return a moment later in a pair of fluffy shorts and matching slippers and joining you in the hallway.

“Sorry, Vaggie really isn’t a morning person, she needs like,” Charlie checks her wrist as if to look at a watch, and, finding none, glances out the window instead, “uh, like three more hours of sleep and a lot of black coffee and she’ll be back to her normal self!”

You aren’t sure that the waves of murderous intent seeping from under the door are _abnormal_ for Vaggie, but you decide to leave that one alone for now.

“No, it’s my fault, I should have checked the time,” You nervously run your hand over your broken horn, “I just wanted to ask you where your cleaning supplies are. There are quite a few bloodstains on the carpet, and some broken furniture I was hoping to fix…or at least clean up.”

“Oh, well, I mean, you really don’t need to worry about it. You’re still injured after all, and I wouldn’t want you to—” Charlie swallows her words when you lift the edge of your shirt, exposing your neatly healing injury. “Wow, that looks…are you sure you were stabbed with a Valiant weapon?”

You say a silent thank you to what remains of your healing ability, and that it seems to be so phenomenally better than that of demons, at least where holy weaponry is concerned.

“Charlie, I’m fine, I’m healing well. What I really want is something to focus on, something to _do_.” You drop your shirt and try to muster a smile for the pink-cheeked demon “And besides, you’ve let me stay here with no questions asked,”

Charlie looks down and to the left, scratching her head.

“We did ask a few questions…”

“Okay, with very _few_ questions asked. I want to help, to repay you in some way. I would feel much better if you would let me clean up my room, _at least_.” You move to put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, but think better of it. 

You don’t know where you and Charlie stand exactly. She did refer to you as a friend the other night, but you had been…emotional. And she had hugged you yesterday, but that had been in excitement when you agreed to help with her redemption endeavors. You don’t want to overstep your boundaries with her, especially not when you still, for the most part, _look_ like an angel. The last thing you want to do is make her uncomfortable, when you already owe her so much.

Charlie, however, makes the decision for you, seizing your hand and pulling you after her down the hallway.

“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me, but you have to let me help okay? Boss’s orders!” Charlie looks at you while she walks, which makes you both nervous and dizzy. You have no idea how she navigates these uneven corridors with such ease, and without even _looking_. Frankly, it’s spooky.

“Wait, _boss_?” Your brain, like the rest of you, is still several steps behind Charlie’s. 

“Well, I mean,” Charlie stops abruptly, and you almost smack face first into her shoulder as she turns to face you. “I figured, well…since you said you wanted to help, you know, maybe you could work here? I wouldn’t be your boss really, more like a…partner, I guess? I was mostly joking about the whole boss thing…” Charlie trails off at the stunned look on your face.

“You’re…offering me a job?” You feel like you’re running to catch up with Charlie still.

“Well, only if you want one! You could also be like a guest, I guess, if you prefer that. Or a volunteer or something, but like a paid volunteer, because I would pay you! You would be paid…of course…” Charlie clasps her hands in front of her and wrings them together as she talks, not making eye contact

You notice that she does that a lot when she’s nervous.

 _Wait,_ she’s offering you a job _and_ a place to stay _and_ a chance to hide from your pursuers, and _she’s_ nervous.

Charlie is so…

You flounder for the word. Your angelic brain offers a few, virtues mostly: _generous, humble, benevolent_.

 _Kind_ , is the one you pick.

Charlie is intensely kind, kinder than nearly anyone you have met, certainly in heaven and in hell, possibly even on earth.

You reach out and hesitate, before deciding to risk it and pulling Charlie into a very awkward and inexperienced hug.

“Charlie, I would love to work for you. _Thank you_.”

Something drips on your hand and you realize that you’re crying for possibly the tenth time since **falling**. But this time it’s…peaceful. It’s good. 

You’re happy, these are happy tears. 

You didn’t know you could cry from happiness.

Charlie hugs you back and laughs in what sounds like relief. You can feel the tension leave her shoulders as you hug her.

“That’s great! I was planning to ask you in a more professional manner but, my improv skills aren’t great.”

Charlie holds you at arms-length, takes in your tears and smile, and gives you a positively radiant grin.

“You’re going to _love_ it here, I promise. We’re going to make a difference!”

You laugh and nod, wiping your face with the collar of your T-shirt.

“But first, let’s try and make a difference on the mess in your room, okay?” And before you know it you’re stumbling along after Charlie down the half-lit hallway.

…

You spend most of the morning and afternoon cleaning your room with Charlie’s help. You fully expected getting the blood out of the carpet to be difficult, but were both pleased and distinctly _not_ surprised by the variety of products available in hell for removing blood from literally _anything_.

Digging through Charlie’s supply closet you find the likes of “ _Filthy Frank’s Fastest Fur Fix_ ” for removing blood from animal fur, “ _OxyBlood: Removing Bloodstains with the power of Oxygen_ ” which apparently only works on cotton-based fabrics in light colors, and even “ _Daffodil Dream_ ” which claims to lift blood from no less than six different types of couch upholstery. Your personal favorite however is “ _Spray-n-pray_ ” which was specifically designed to clean demon blood from weapons, “both holy and unholy.” Considering the primary job of the Principalities in heaven is to cleanse Valiant weapons of demon blood, you are both suspicious of and intrigued by the claims of this particular cleaning solution. 

Suffice to say, there is a spray bottle claiming to remove bloodstains from, specifically, “Carpeting of shades 666 or lighter” for which a color wheel is provided, confirming that your carpet is, in fact, lighter than shade 666.

As for functionality, you are less impressed. Getting the blood out still takes hours of scrubbing and blotting, and leaves a strange minty scent to the room that makes you vaguely nauseous, but the carpet is, at least, mostly back to one consistent shade. 

The broken furniture takes longer to sort through, especially to find what can and can’t be repaired. You do manage to recreate something like a bedside table from the scraps, but anything beyond that is a lost cause.

At some point, Vaggie joins the two of you in the room and starts rehearsing something

like a speech with Charlie. Every time Charlie takes a break, Vaggie grills her on the “mission statement of the hotel” and the “success we’ve had with our first patron.”

Smoothing out the still-damp carpet with one foot, you straighten out your aching back and accept a glass of water from Charlie. 

“What are you and Vaggie working on?” You ask, taking a sip.

Charlie blushes slightly, which is difficult to spot through her already-rosy cheeks, and scratches the back of her head.

“Oh well, we were planning to do some marketing for the hotel, you know, to raise awareness.” Charlie shrugs, trying to downplay, you suspect.

“Marketing where? Are you presenting something?” You ask, thinking of the rehearsed responses Charlie has been practicing all day.

“Well, kinda yeah, we got a slot on the 666 News tomorrow evening,” Charlie sets her glass down and starts collecting the remaining pieces of furniture

“Yes, we do.” Vaggie’s voice comes from the hall, followed shortly by her head, “and what did we agree on Charlie?”

Charlie shrugs and looks off to the side, mumbling something.

“Charlie.” Vaggie taps her foot on the threshold.

“No singing.” Charlie says quietly.

“Exactly.” Vaggie reaches out her hand to take one of the chunks of wood from Charlie.

 _No singing?_ You recall Charlie’s serenade from the night before. Singing on a news slot does seem right up her alley. You can’t help but think that demons may not be as amenable to Charlie’s songs as you and Vaggie, however.

 _Yeah, no singing._ You have to agree with Vaggie here.

Charlie and Vaggie head towards the door, remaining pieces of the broken chair in tow.

“Ok, but Vaggie, I have some really _really_ good ideas, I was just thinking that maybe adding a little bit of a tune to them might…”

“No, Charlie.”

“But what about just a backing track? For my interview…”

“Charlie…”

The two voices fade down the hall, Charlies slowly rising in excitement. 

You’ll have to make a mental note to ask Charlie how to work the television so you can watch the broadcast. 

Without the two demons, your room is suddenly very silent. Almost eerily so, compared to the bustle of the last few hours. 

Feeling restless, you wander toward the window and pull back the curtain to take a proper look at the view. You realize that you haven’t actually looked out the window before now, and are pleased to find that it extends to the floor and even opens to a small round balcony. 

Opening the window, you step out into the little space, enjoying the feeling of the tepid hellscape air on your sweaty face. You hadn’t realized you were working hard enough to break a sweat, but even the lukewarm breeze feels good. 

From the balcony, you can see across a field bordering the hotel over a nearby street into the city. You notice, after a moment of enjoying the relatively fresh, if a bit sulfur-tinged, air, that the city too seems eerily quiet. 

Squinting, you look across the road and note that there don’t seem to be any demons on the street. Turning slightly, you watch the black sun sink low on the horizon, casting long shadows over the sidewalk. Strange, for things to be so quiet as the sun goes down.

With a jolt, you realize that you had forgotten the Extermination, completely. Sure, your intention in cleaning your room had partly been to distract you from the looming invasion, but you hadn’t expected it to work quite so well. And now, facing the silent city, holding its breath for the angelic rampage, you feel a fresh wave of guilt. Demons out there are no doubt scrambling to find hiding places to avoid the cleansing, and meanwhile you are safe and cozy, worried only about getting stains out of your carpet. 

With a shudder, you step back into your room and shut the window, latching it and pulling the thick curtains closed. 

You know you shouldn’t think about that which you cannot change. You should accept it. It’s not as though you can go round up demons to stash away in _Charlie’s_ hotel, if any random demon would even trust you enough to agree to that.

What you really need is another distraction. Something to focus on, a new task.

Charlie offered to take you shopping in the next week, so that you can stop stealing her pajamas out of desperation. You are looking forward to blending in, and you know that dressing like a demon is an important step in that process. 

Stepping into the bathroom, you twist around and inspect your shirt where it lays against your wings. Hiding your wings will be tricky, but you know that it needs to be done. 

Charlie assured you that many demons have wings, and yet, when pressed, she admitted that none had charred blackened _useless_ wings. This only confirmed your suspicions from your brief foray into the city. No demon has wings like yours, your charred and torn skin would be a dead giveaway to any demon with even slight knowledge of **fallen** angels. 

Charlie did hint that there used to be more **fallen** in hell, even some that fell after Lucifer, but lacked his power. From her silence, you know few if any are still alive. 

You can’t risk a demon knowing what your wings mean, or even intuiting what they may mean. Your only choice is to hide them.

But, even under this baggy shirt, your wings are visible. When you extend them downwards, the charred ends stick out more than a full foot past the lower hem of your shirt. If you fold them slightly to hide the ends, the joints push out the edges of the fabric and create a strange triangle shape. Even fully folded, the upper joint extends nearly six inches over your shoulders. In this oversized shirt, you can see the blackened skin through the loose collar. 

Your wings are, after all, each more than four feet from shoulder to tip, which is less than half of what they were with feathers. They are simply _too big_ to just sit against your back without poking out in some way. 

_This is ridiculous_. You think to yourself, trying to tie off the end of the shirt in such a way that it pins your wings down. Wings aren’t designed to be _hidden_ , they’re designed to be _used_. They have to be big so that you can _fly_ , much too big to just hide under a shirt.

Not that you can fly now anyway.

Despondent, you pull your wings forward under your shirt and hug them around under your new breasts. The motion takes you a few tries to get right, as you still aren’t used to navigating your new shape.

 _Thankfully they are as small as they are_. You can’t imagine if you had anything the size of Angel’s pouf of fur, that would be horribly inconvenient, and probably very top-heavy. Your back is already sore from working with a shifted center of gravity.

_Hold on._

You freeze your thoughts in your tracks as you look at yourself in the mirror. 

Your wings, they’re _under_ the shirt, as in _all of them._

You spin in a disbelieving circle, inspecting the effect and pulling the shirt tight.

It’s not perfect. Your back looks oddly broad, and the limbs in front give the effect of having a much more heavily endowed chest than you actually do, but the wings are _hidden_. 

You pull your shirt up all the way, exposing your wings where they are folded up under your breasts.

 _This could work_. Except, your extensor muscles are already starting to protest holding the awkward position. What you need is some kind of binding, or something to keep your wings pinned down so that you don’t have to hold them up.

An image of Angel, dressed as he was when you first saw him in the alleyway pops into your head, with his black lace-up dress.

_That’s it._

You yank your shirt down and rocket out your door, one arm pinned against your bad side.

You run down the dark hallway for about 30 seconds before you realize that you don’t actually know which room Angel is in.

Your side cramping painfully, you backtrack and hurry down the stairs instead, calling for Charlie. You catch sight of her from the top of the lobby stairs, standing and chatting with Vaggie, and shout down.

“Charlie!” She looks up at you and smiles. “What is Angel’s room number?”

“Um, 253?” She says.

You turn on your heel and race back up the stairs, pausing for a moment at the curve to shout back a hurried “Thank you” and continue down the hall.

You nearly shoot right past 253, and have to skid to a precarious halt just past it and take a half step back to bang on the brass number plate.

“Angel! Are you in there?”

At first, there’s no response, then a muffled

“Are you gonna fucking nark on me?”

Unsure what that means, you respond with “I…don’t think so?”

Immediately, the door opens a crack and a speckled pink-and-white hand reaches out and yanks you inside by the collar.

Angel’s room is immediately disorienting. The sheer number of mirrors makes it impossible to tell where the space starts and stops, and the air is thick with acrid smoke and perfume.

Angel is dressed in a tight-fitting fuchsia nightgown and a sheer robe. Behind him, on the bed, you see an assortment of what you can only assume is drug paraphernalia. You only really recognize a few things, particularly bags of unmarked sparkling white powder from the “Drugs” machine in the alleyway.

Confused, you look up at Angel, whose eyes appear unusually bloodshot.

“The fuck you looking at?” Angel says, putting a hand on his hip.

“Um, what is all of,” You gesture broadly to the display laid out across his rather large bed, “that?”

“I’m organizing my stash, I gotta figure out where to put all the stuff I got from the other night.”

 _The other night?_ Does he mean, from the night you two met. From the machine? But you had only seen Angel grab one thing from the machine, and promptly finish it in front of you within a minute. When did he….?

“What, you didn’t think I just left that busted machine for some other bozo to get his fix, did ya? Those things are hard as fuck to break kid, I wasn’t gonna pass that shit up.”

Angel dramatically tosses his hair and you realize that _yes_ , he _robbed_ the vending machine. And he must have done it _before_ taking your unconscious body back to the hotel.

“I—” You start, before Angel cuts you off.

“Hey I’m a busy guy I ain't got time to answer all ya dumb questions. Didn’t you need something toots?” Tapping his fingers against his hip impatiently.

You decide this drug revelation is not, in the grand scheme of things, all that surprising, and decide to let it go. Tearing your gaze away from the menagerie on the bed and up to Angel’s impatient face you attempt to reorient.

“Um, yes. I wanted to borrow something, if you have it.”

Angel practically glows with excitement.

“Oh my god, babe, is it drugs? Cause I have literally _everything_ here right now, it’s the most loaded I’ve been in weeks. I’ve even got some of the really weird shit, we could totally—”

“No!” You yelp, and then clear your throat. “Um, no, it’s actually clothes.”

Angel looks somewhat less thrilled, but still dangerously interested. He gives you a once over that makes you feel oddly naked in your oversized shirt.

“Uh, yeah well, you are in dire straits there babe, but I don’t exactly think we’re the same size, ya’ know” Angel gestures to his towering form with his lower set of hands and raises an immaculate eyebrow at you.

 _He’s not wrong_ , you consider this, but press on anyways. 

“I was wondering if you could lend me a corset? Or a…” You struggle for the word, “A corset that goes under my…um, breasts.” You find yourself flushing awkwardly at the last part, unsure of how to refer to your own new anatomy.

Angel looks intrigued and bends down to inspect your torso.

“You mean like a _bustier_? You got someone to impress sugartits?”

You feel your blush spread down your neck, and are suddenly very thankful for your down feathers and their high coverage.

You don’t actually manage to form the words to refute Angel before he finishes his impromptu inspection.

“Well, I dunno what you’re trying to hide under there,” He gestures dismissively to your shirt, under which your wings are tucked, “but I think I might have something that would work.” Angel straightens gracefully and struts over to his mirrored wardrobe, flinging it open and digging into the massive pile of glitter and sequined fabric piled there.

 _Hide?_ You wonder if you are really that obvious or if Angel is just particularly good at reading these kinds of things. _Did he even notice my wings before?_

It takes Angel a while to find what he’s looking for, during which time you start to generate a headache just under the base of your horns from the strong smells filling the room. It’s as if Angel has tested every perfume he owns, on top of a dozen scented candles. The effect is…powerful. 

Angel straightens dramatically and waves a scrap deep red of fabric in one clawed hand, snapping with the other and grabbing your attention. He tosses the object to you, which you barely manage to catch and hold up for inspection

The cloth is actually a boned _bustier_ , as Angel promised, red with black vertical pinstripes and gold clasps in the front. The bottom is edged in sheer blood red lace. It looks small enough that it could actually fit you with some cinching.

It’s perfect to cover your wings.

And absolutely _indecent_. 

You look up at Angel, scandalized. He looks proud of himself.

“What? He asks, when he sees your expression

You swallow thickly, and look back down and the scrap of cloth in your hands.

“Do you have anything more…white?” Your voice cracks.

“Bitch, do I _look_ like I have anything white?” You have to admit, Angel does not, in fact, look like he has anything white, “Besides, white would blend in with my fur, trust me, _not_ a look.”

You look back down at the _bustier_ and try to convince yourself that it wouldn’t be completely _immoral_ to wear. It is, technically, exactly what you asked for, and Angel is being very kind to lend it to you. It’s just…

“What the fuck do you care what it looks like? A goody-two-shoes virgin like you is gonna wear it _under_ her clothes anyway, I can already tell. A fuckin shame if you ask me, that shit is expensive and cute as all hell. Actually I think I might have a matching G-string in here somewhere if you give me a second—”

“THANKYOUANGELGOODBYE” You squeal, and make a break for the door.

“You’re welcome hot stuff, try to get that massive stick out of your ass if you get the chance, m’kay?” Angel’s cackle follows you down the hallway all the way to where you slam your door shut behind you.

Blushing furiously, you lay the corset on your bed and stare at it as if willing it not to bite you. 

You cannot _possibly_ wear this thing, it’s… _debaucherous_.

But your wings…You can’t hold them against your ribs all day, Michael forbid you forget and let them relax, or if something startles you to flap.

You need _something_ to hold them down.

And Angel is right, you _would_ be wearing it under your clothes, no one but you would know that it was there.

 _Only, that’s almost worse_. Hiding this thing under your clothes is somehow _perverse_.

But you do _need_ it.

Maybe you could wear it just until you find something better, something more conservative?

 _And walk into a store full of these things?_ The thought sets you blushing all over again. 

No, you should take your chances with what you have. Besides, Angel lent it to you without asking questions, you shouldn’t insult his…taste.

You pick up the fabric again and hold it out in front of you, sighing

You should just try it on and see if it works, you don’t even know if your idea is any good yet.

You take a half step towards the bathroom, before a piercing sound freezes you in your tracks.

It’s a bell, like a church bell but vastly less musical. The sound is dissonant, unsettling in a way a church bell would never be. As you stand there, the sound repeats.

_Thirteen tolls?_

The extermination, pushed again to the back of your mind by your stupid distractions, swings itself front and center as you rush back to look out your window, corset forgotten on the bed.

_The bell must be a signal_

_The extermination is beginning_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! That was a really long one! Honestly though, this chapter was a blast to write. In spite of how much trouble I have writing Angel in a way that is true to his voice in the show, he is by far my favorite character. Every time I come up with something fun for him it’s the best feeling, lol.  
> As for my method of hiding wings: it’s kind of a long-standing pet peeve of mine that stories about people with wings just let them hide that shit under a T-shirt. I used to read those Maximum Ride books as a teenager (about kids with wings, if you haven’t read them), and like halfway through the series I suddenly realized that wings big enough to allow humans to fly would have to be, like 20 feet in span. An albatross has a wing span of like 6 feet and they only weigh like 15 lbs. Not only that, but the shortest part of a bird wing is the humerus, which long story short means that a wing would extend way above a person’s shoulder. Suffice to say, I’m a smart-ass with severely under-developed suspension of disbelief skills, and as a result I spent longer than I am willing to admit researching anatomically correct ways to hide bird wings on a human. What I came up with, roughly, is to pull the wings to the front and tuck them under a corset, which only really works because MC’s wings are featherless and therefore very small. The results of my research? Hiding functional wings on a human is basically impossible if they are anatomical bird wings. So to everyone who hides that shit under a T-shirt, honestly, more power to you.  
> Seriously look at these things, they’re huge: https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/if-humans-had-wings-what-would-their-wingspan-be/  
> I’m pretty convinced wings big enough for humans to fly wouldn’t even allow them to walk upright, they would be THAT big. I generated a real headache over this one, 0/100 would not recommend science applied to bird people.  
> Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed these few diversions before the extermination! Our angel now has a job lined up with the hotel, and a way to hide her wings! Things are looking up!  
> Although, of course, as it always is with hell, things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better.  
> Oh and before I forget: Translations (which I frequently fail to provide, sorry)  
> ¡Hijo de puta! ¿Quién está en la puerta a este hora? = Son of a bitch! who is at the door at this hour?  
> And, yes, our angel understands Spanish, and all human languages. She has auto-translate on, it’s an angel perk. She has to practice to speak a language fluently though. As for why angels and demons speak English, well…yeah you got me there, it’s pretty much just a plot device.  
> See you all in the next one!


	18. Shut Up Like a Telescope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you attempt to exercise some self-control...

Chapter 17: Shut Up Like a Telescope

* * *

From you window, the street looks the same as it had this afternoon. Deserted. For a moment you hold a brief irrational hope that Vaggie had somehow gotten the date wrong, and the bell tolls signify something else.

_Like a holiday?_

But you can feel the tension. Even from your height above the street, the fear radiates through you like a draft

Then you hear it.

The sound is so quiet you almost _feel_ it more than anything, like a change in your heartbeat, a shift of the blood in your veins. It’s a low, throbbing sound, a beat, a hum.

Its familiar, its musical, and it fills you with deep, _deep_ dread.

Gabriel’s horn, you can hear it as it drifts down from the sky. It’s the signal to move, the signal to battle.

Your breath hitches and your heartbeat synchronizes with the sound. Clawing the curtains closed, you spin and crouch with your back to the window, trying to block out the noise.

But it’s like the sound is _in_ you, the horn, the rustle of wings descending from space, the hum of a thousand spears.

_Angels are born for battle_.

But you’ve never been _below._ Never heard the beat of wings when your own are silent. Never heard the horn heralding your own massacre.

It’s terrifying.

And then the screaming starts.

You don’t look out the window again, but you know that the deserted streets were deceptive, and that they are filling with terrified demons. If modern-day hell is anything like the hell you visited centuries ago attending your own exterminations, you know that all too many demons have nowhere to hide. Demons too new, too stupid, or too poor to hide indoors crouched in alleys and darkened corners, trying their best to avoid the death raining from above.

_Just like me_. The carpet below you feels cold, like the damp broken concrete of the alleyway. Your stomach twinges, and you can almost smell rotting fish.

Breathing hard, you scramble to your bathroom, shutting the door behind you. It muffles the screams, but not by much.

Shivering, you turn on the sink full-blast, and then the shower, the running water helps to drown out the noise.

But you know what’s out there. Thousands of demons _just like you_ injured or hurt or abandoned with nowhere to hide and no chance of survival. The game is time, can they survive until Gabriel’s horn calls the exterminators back to heaven?

_Unlikely_. Even in your days, angels almost never had to enter buildings, the populations of demons homeless, lost, or trapped in the streets was more than enough to require all of your attention. 

And now again, those demons that lack the resources or knowledge to protect themselves are sacrificed. Just like on earth. Just like the humans.

_A girl sleeps on the dirty sidewalk. Her clothes are clean, her long brown hair brushed. Under her head is a bundle of clothes, a blanket covers her._

_Around her are her things, in bags or suitcases. It’s not much, but it will be even less by morning. She doesn’t know to hide her possessions, doesn’t know how to blend in._

_As her belongings disappear, she sleeps on, the sleep of the innocent._

_When she wakes, she cries._

You aren’t sure how long you stay in the bathroom, listening to the sounds of running water and trying to ignore the fluctuating tide of sound from outside, pretending you are somewhere else.

More than once you hear the musical laughter of your kind, and it always sets you shivering.

They laughed when you **fell** , too.

Eventually, the cold of the bathroom floor seeps through your thin T-shirt, and even the sounds of the water can’t hold your attention. It’s like you’re struggling for each breath, the sounds from the streets outside replacing the air in your lungs and leaving you gasping. You need to go somewhere else, _be_ somewhere else. If you can’t stop what’s happening outside, you can’t just sit and listen to it.

Struggling up from the ground, your legs asleep from the awkward way you had been curled into yourself, you fumble the faucets closed and swing the door open. 

The sounds are louder out here, and you don’t want to hear them anymore. You burst through the door to your room, letting it swing closed behind you as you run down the hall.

Your run doesn’t last long, with your breathing as ragged as it is, and on top of that your side starts to burn right away. Panting, you slow to a stop before you reach the staircase.

It’s quieter here, in the hallway. You can hear the occasional muffled voice or thump, but it’s indistinct. It could almost be anything.

Voices drift up from below, and faint music. 

You step towards the top of the stairs and dig your talons into the thick carpet, considering your options. 

You could stay here, in the hall. But someone would come by eventually, Angel or Charlie or Vaggie. They would probably ask questions…or, Charlie would probably ask questions. But maybe you want that? A distraction? Maybe this won’t be so hard in a group, maybe you won’t have to think about the indiscriminate slaughter, the defenseless souls condemned for far less than your **priest** facing a retribution they cannot escape.

You shake your head in an effort to derail your thoughts and step off the landing. _You can’t do anything right now._ You know that you’ll only get yourself hurt or killed out there, and likely won’t save anyone. 

When you come around the bend, what you see isn’t exactly what you expect. Everything is oddly…normal.

Angel Dust is laying sprawled across the one uncovered couch, feet propped up on the armrest and face in his phone. Vaggie and Charlie are seated at the same folding table as last night, going over some papers and talking. The music you heard seems to be coming from some speakers propped up on an overturned refrigerator, filling the room with electronic riffs and a quietly throbbing baseline. The base especially seems to masque the sounds from outside, from in here, you can almost imagine it’s an average day.

But that in itself is disconcerting. You wanted a distraction, yes, but the lack of any discernable marks that the other people in the building are in the least bit upset by the extermination is unsettling on a new and unexpected level. 

Somewhat hesitantly, you make your way down the stairs. Angel looks up from his phone only briefly, grunting when he sees you before returning to whatever so engrosses him. 

Charlie and Vaggie look up at your entrance too, but don’t call out to you. Instead Charlie motions you over to the table. As you approach, you notice the dark circles under her yellow eyes and realize that it must be quite late in the evening. The extermination goes on from sunset to sunrise, nearly 12 hours. You wonder if Charlie and Vaggie plan to stay up all night.

When you get close, Charlie speaks in a softer voice than you think you’ve ever heard from her.

“Hey, I was wondering if you were gonna come down. The lobby is the quietest place in the building.” She smiles somewhat too brightly, and pulls out a chair for you.

“Do you always stay up for the exterminations?” You ask, matching her volume.

Charlie winces almost imperceptibly, but brightens back up.

“Yeah, you can’t really sleep with all the noise, ya know? Better to get some work done!” She motions to the table where various printed and handwritten pages are spread out. 

You pick up the nearest page, a printout of a news report, seemingly about the Happy Hotel. The written section is small and very scathing, calling the whole thing “a rich brat’s pipe dream,” but underneath it you see some notes scrawled in what you recognize as Charlie’s handwriting. “Try to get them to come in person next time!” and “We made it to the paper! Yay!” among others.

You glance up at Charlie, “Are you…practicing for the interview tomorrow?”

Charlie beams, you can practically see stars in her eyes, but she keeps her voice at the same low volume. 

“Yeah, it’s gonna be great! It’s the most exposure we have ever gotten, almost a million people watch 666 News, I read, so there’s gonna be a, uh, a lot of eyes, on me…” Charlie trails off, and seems to be sweating.

Vaggie reaches across the table and places a hand on Charlie’s forearm. Charlie looks at her and offers a tight smile.

“You’re going to do great, I know it. Let’s just keep working on the talking points okay?” Vaggie’s smile is a few degrees more gentle that you have ever seen it.

Charlie appears to rally under this support, and grabs a paper at random. 

“Yeah! You’re right, I’ve totally got this”

You wonder if the extermination is setting Charlie on edge, she hadn’t seemed nearly this nervous about the interview earlier today.

Eager to track yourself _away_ from the events just outside the walls, you turn to Charlie.

“Can I help at all?” You offer.

Charlie spins back to you and lets out a strange, low-volume squeal.

“Yes of course! Thank you! I actually wanted to talk to you about some of the rehabilitation programs we are going to offer.”

Charlie’s enthusiasm for the Hotel is heartwarming, and helping her brainstorm ideas about rehabilitating sinners, and practice her talking points for the interview reduces your anxiety to more of a background panic. Charlie even offers you something she calls a _granola bar_ , which, like the food from the previous evening, is heart-stoppingly delicious. You eat 6 before you realize that you should probably save some for your hosts. 

Every few minutes, Angel groans from the couch and shifts positions, complaining under his breath, or switches the song with his phone. The noise settles into a sort of comfortable ambiance, and you find that you don’t really mind Angel’s cantankerous presence.

Even Vaggie seems to warm up to you. Although a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle isn’t exactly _warm_ , you consider it an improvement, as she seems to be actually engaging you in conversation about the hotel, if only to humor Charlie.

Charlie, on the other hand, drifts further and further away from the mainstream and into her own excitement. Her ideas become progressively more flamboyant and less realistic, and after a point the conversation moves from practical spit-balling, to a joint effort between you and Vaggie to talk Charlie down from choreographing a three-part musical stage production for the 5 o’clock news. 

It’s chaotic, and a bit silly, but you do find a rhythm. You start to hope maybe you can do this, let this extermination pass, ignore your own simmering guilt, and just focus on Charlie, on making a difference here with her project.

That hope doesn’t last nearly as long as you need it to.

…

After an hour or so of steadfastly ignoring the muffled sounds seeping through the walls, a loud _bang_ pulls everyone attention to the front door.

Even Angel sits up, knuckles white against the wooden frame of the couch.

Everything is silent before another loud _bang_ sounds, and then another, heavy and desperate against the heavy wooden doors. The handle rattles briefly, as the sounds continue.

_Someone is trying to get inside_.

Even though you _know_ that an angel would never knock on a door to get in, much less bother with the handle, and would be much more likely to break the entire structure off its hinges, you can’t help the way your blood turns to ice and your breath stops. On reflex, you extend your right hand and try to summon your Valiant weapon, before you remember that you _can’t_.

Through the door a broken voice comes, almost a sob.

“Please, is there anyone in there? Can you help me? Please, oh Lucifer, they’re out here. I ran but… Just please let me in!”

The banging continues. 

Charlie stands from her chair and moves towards Vaggie, who seems to have pulled her contraband Valiant spear out of thin air, raising it defensively. Neither of them make a sound, everyone seems to be listening for the tell-tale laughter, or the heavy wet _thud_ that would tell them that this is over.

It doesn’t come.

“Please, fucking _please_ I’m begging you, if anyone can hear me, let me in. I can’t run anymore, I’m hurt. I just need place to hide _please_.” The banging continues, rising in volume as the demon outside the door becomes more desperate.

Silently, you rise from your chair, hand clutching your chest, heart racing.

“Everyone is _fucking_ dead and those things are out here just _please_. I don’t want to die, not again. I don’t want to die again. Not like this. Oh God not like this.” The knocking slows and stops, and you hear something heavy hit the door, and then a sliding sound. The quiet sobbing continues.

“What did I ever do to deserve this?” The quiet voice asks. It sounds small. It sounds broken. It sounds hopeless. “What did any of us ever _fucking_ do?”

_The girl with the long brown hair, crouched on a street corner, cardboard sign in her now-calloused hands. People hurry past her, not looking at her and the track-marks that dot her forearms. In her head she wonders “What did I do to deserve this?”_

_And the voices of a thousand other humans, their hands clasped, faces raised in prayer to a heaven they can’t see, can’t understand. A heaven that will not hear them._

_What did we ever do?_

And then you’re running, hand outstretched and reaching for the door. 

Because you know that they never _did_ anything, not to deserve _this_.

Charlie yelps as you tear past her. She tries to catch your arm, but she misses.

Vaggie is faster. She grabs the corner of your shirt and yanks you off balance. When you stumble, she streaks past you, blocking your way to the door.

You move forward, but she brandishes her spear and bares her sharp teeth.

“Take one more step _puta,_ and I’ll gut you like a fish. _No seas estúpida_.” The point of the spear glints wickedly, even in the low light of the lobby.

“Get out of my way Vaggie” You hiss, trying to find a way around her.

“ _Fuck_ no. What the hell do you think you’re doing _idiota_ , do you have a death wish?”

“That person needs _help_. I’m not just going to sit here and let them die.”

“That person is already _dead_ , and you will be too if you open that goddamn door.”

You feign to the left and then make a break for Vaggie’s right. She stumbles, and you think for a second you’ve made it, when Charlie’s hands grab your arm.

You try to pull away, but Charlie is a _lot_ stronger than she looks, and her grip is rock solid. Your talons only succeed in leaving long useless scratches in the hardwood floor.

Once Charlie has you trapped, Vaggie rushes from your other side and plants her hands against your shoulders, pushing you back towards the table, effectively pinning you. 

“Vaggie is right,” Charlie says, “You can’t help them.”

“You don’t know that. I have to try” You keep pulling, trying to twist your arm away from Charlie’s grasp. 

“Yes, I do. Angel’s don’t just _let_ demons get away. It’s a _trap_ , they _want_ someone to come and help.” Charlie sound heartbroken, but she doesn’t let up.

“ _Don’t you think I know that?”_ You round on Charlie, hissing and looking her dead in the eye. “ _I’ve been on the other side of that door, Charlie._ ”

Charlie’s eyes go wide and she gasps, yanking her hands back like she’s been burned. 

You’ve been trapped before, needed help before, but Charlie knows that’s not what you mean. You know what it feels like to hunt down demons. You know how to lay traps, how to manipulate other demons into coming out. It’s standard training.

And the fear on Charlie’s face tells you she knows that too.

Without her hold on you, you throw yourself against Vaggie. Even with her feet braced, she can’t hold you back, and you slowly start to push her backwards, towards the front door.

“Charlie, what the hell is wrong with you? _Help me_ , I can’t hold her by myself.” Vaggie grunts, trying with all her strength to push back against your slow but unstoppable progress.

Charlie says nothing.

Through the door you hear scrambling, and a shrill scream.

“Holy _shit_. Fuck, they’re here. Please, please God help me _please_ , anyone, don’t let me die like this.”

Vaggie is sweating, it’s running down her face in rivulets and soaking into the collar of her dress. Her one eye is squeezed shut with the effort.

“Charlie, I need you here! Charlie!”

Charlie is silent.

You reach out, forcing your arm straight even as Vaggie throws her weight against you.

The door is right there, you can save this person, you don’t have to pretend, you don’t have to give in anymore.

“’Ey, feathers.”

Angels voice comes from behind you, oddly calm. On instinct you turn.

You hear Charlie gasp, shouting “Angel don’t!”

Then everything goes black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again everyone!   
>  Wow, okay, so this chapter. Originally, I was going to have our angel just sit the extermination out, since she is injured and wayyyy out of her depth. But the more I wrote the more I realized there was just no way the person I had created in my brain would just ignore the extermination for like 12 hours, I just couldn’t write it. My second plan was to have her actually go out there, but I couldn’t make that work out without anyone dying either. So this chapter sort of grew out of that on its own and without my full participation haha, but I think it turned out great! The characters sort of wrote themselves lol.   
>  In terms of lore, I’m not sure what the extermination looks like for most demons, but I like the idea of it being a sort of bomb raid. You stay indoors, maybe go into a shelter if you have one, stay quiet, play some low-volume music, and try to ignore the carnage. Horrible, but that’s what you have to do.   
> That’s all from me for now. Stay tuned :3


	19. I've Had Nothing Yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you get a wake-up call, and make some resolutions...

Chapter 18: I’ve Had Nothing Yet

* * *

Your sleep is dreamless. A formless black void that surrounds you, sticks to your skin and drags at your feet when you try to leave it. You wake up only with effort, and still steeped in the dregs of your unconsciousness.

You also have an atrocious headache.

As the fog reluctantly clears, the pain rolls in, throbbing from the right side of your skull straight through to your left. 

Groaning, you raise a hand and press it to your head, trying to hold your skull together where it feels like its splitting. You crack your eyes open to look at your hand as you pull it back, half expecting it to come away with chunks of bone and slick with blood, but you see nothing.

You put your hand back to your head and try to keep yourself together long enough to figure out where you are. Rolling stiffly to your left, you see a pinstriped wall with a mounted TV above dusty portraits laid against the baseboards.

_The Hotel?_ You recognize the TV and the apple motifs, and realize you must be laying on the couch in the lobby.

But why, did you fall asleep? And why does your head feel like its falling to pieces?

You remember being in the lobby. Charlie was there, and Vaggie. There was a commotion, someone was at the door, and…

_The Extermination._

You struggle to sit up and look around, keeping one hand firmly pressed against your temple. The lobby appears empty and silent, even the music from before has stopped.

You remember someone at the door, someone who needed help.

And you remember completely losing your self-control. You groan as you realize what a foolish thing you had done. A whole day of distractions and pep talks about how you _should_ stay indoors and how it was more _practical_ and _strategic_ , and it only takes one encounter to send you completely over the edge. As if you hadn’t known that thousands were out there suffering. It was only when one literally landed on your doorstep that you threw away your common sense. It’s embarrassing, and demoralizing. 

And not only that, you had also essentially told Charlie about your previous role in exterminations. You wince at that particular memory. You hadn’t strictly _wanted_ to tell her about that, it was a part of yourself you preferred to forget, a relic of a time when you didn’t yet know how to question orders. E _very_ angel participates in exterminations at some point, but even so, it hurts you to remember your own complicities. You hope that this won’t force you to leave the Hotel, but you know that it very well might, and that Charlie would be more than justified in sending you away. 

But then…you had gotten to the door to let the person in. And Angel had said something, and then…nothing?

What in Michael’s name had happened? How long have you been asleep? Is the extermination still happening?

_What had happened to that soul?_

You know already, what you’re still being alive means for the soul outside the door

_What did I ever do to deserve this_?

You wonder how many other souls asked that question, are still asking that question? You try to tell yourself that even _if_ the extermination is still taking place, you _can’t_ go outside. But at this point, the words are empty. You’re embarrassed by your behavior, yes, even more so by your weak resolve, but you can’t pretend, after hearing that soul behind the door, that you wouldn’t do it again. 

Groaning, you put your feet on the ground and try to muster up the courage or desire to stand, in spite of the valiant effort of your skull to explode all over Charlie’s carpet and kill you.

Engrossed in your task, you don’t hear Angel enter the room until he is right in front of you.

“Oh, good, ya’ not dead. Look at that.”

You look up, squinting through the pain, and see Angel dressed in a long pastel striped suit jacket over dark cropped shorts, eating dry cereal by the handful out of a crumpled box. Immediately you feel a wave of embarrassment, but you try to stomp it down and get your bearings.

“The exterminators…” You start, still dizzy.

“Uh yeah, no, extermination day ended like,” Angel checks an imaginary watch on his wrist, “fuckin six hours ago, somethin’ like that?”

_Ended?_ The extermination is over? You just slept through it?

_Then that soul outside the door really is…_

Appalled, you try to struggle to your feet, but Angel stops you with a single finger pressed to your forehead.

“I wouldn’t try ta stand if I was you toots, you took a hell of a knock, if I do say so myself” Angel pretends to examine his nails through the short hot pink gloves he’s wearing.

_A hell of a knock_? _And why does he look so pleased with himself?_

“I gotta say I’m pretty impressed with ya, babe. You went down like a sack of shit, I didn’t think you’d wake up this side of a week, but I guess if you can be stabbed with a holy weapon its gonna take a lot more’n me to put ya out of commission.” Angel gestures carelessly with one hand, showering you in cereal crumbs.

_A lot more than…_ You’re having trouble following Angel’s theatrical speech. 

“Angel did you…What happened?” You ask, trying to massage some of the pain away with the palm of your hand.

“What _happened_ is you went batshit and tried to get yourself killed and I had to lay ya out just to keep ya from going toe-to-toe with the fuckin exterminators. You’re welcome, by the way.” Angel tosses his fluffy hair and looks down at you. You wince at the reminder.

“I remember that part, unfortunately. But, you…attacked me?” You ask, although you think the answer is fairly obvious.

“Hey, I fuckin’ saved your life babe. Plus I just knocked ya out, I was sorta sure it wouldn’t kill you” Angel’s third set of arms appear from under his coat brandishing a metal baseball bat sporting a sizable dent while his top set shrug.

Angel had hit you with a _bat_? Just to stop you from going outside?

Okay, admittedly, going outside was a terrible idea, and you would have almost certainly died and also failed to save the soul outside the door.

And yet, _a baseball bat_?

You look from Angel to the bat and back again with undisguised horror.

“What? I fuckin’ _helped_ you. You woulda’ died out there, and it wouldn’t’a been pretty. This place may need a new paint job, but not that kind, capiche?” Angel’s third set of arms and the bat disappear, as he huffs. “I dunno what the fuck you were thinking toots, or _if_ you were thinking at all.”

“I was _thinking_ ,” you say, with some degree of indignation, “that I was going to help the person trapped outside our door, who was clearly in mortal danger.”

Something about Angel’s continued badgering seems to boil away your embarrassment.

Angel gapes at you for a second.

“That’s…Look babe that’s real sweet of ya but, that guy was fuckin’ dead, and he woulda been dead whether or not you opened that door. Only difference woulda been you’d’ve been dead too.”

Angel is right, obviously. Opening that door was a death wish, and one that likely wouldn’t have amounted to much.

But he _knocked you out_. _With a bat_. That’s so, excessive. He couldn’t have talked you down, or…something? Although, admittedly, you hadn’t been listening to Vaggie or Charlie’s attempts to talk you down, all things considered.

But, what? Angel knocked you out, and now that you’re awake he expects a thank-you? He wants to stand around and tell you what you already know?

You’re losing your patience here. You’re not sure if it’s the throbbing pain in your head or Angel’s stating the obvious but your feathers puff up and you raise your voice.

“Don’t you think I _know_ that, Angel? I _know_ that it’s reckless and I _know_ that I would have probably died, but I _had_ to try. Don’t you understand that?”

“No, I don’t” Angel says, hands on his hips, “I don’t get why you would throw ya life away for something so fuckin stupid.” 

_Stupid?_ The heat rises in your face and you struggle to your feet. Wanting to save someone, wanting to try to save someone against the odds. Sure, it was foolish, and doomed, but wanting to save people isn’t _stupid_.

“It’s _my_ _life!_ I can throw it away for something ‘fuckin stupid’ if I want to! You had no right to—”

“ _Your_ life?” Angel’s anger matches your own step for step. “Bitch you can go run headfirst into certain fuckin death all goddamn day if you want, I don’t give two shits, but what you _can’t_ do is drag me down stupid street _with_ you” Angels face is red, in fact, his entire chest is red as he jams a gloved finger into your chest.

“What the fuck do you think woulda happened to everyone else if you opened that door? While you went off to play hero and _fucking die_ , did you think for one goddamn second that you woulda blown _all_ of our cover if you opened that fucking door? You wanna kill yourself be my motherfucking guest, but you aint gonna kill me _with_ your dumbass.”

You freeze, and your anger evaporates. You didn’t actually…you hadn’t thought about that. At all. Angel is right, completely right. If you had opened that door, _everyone_ in the hotel would have died, not just you, not just the person on the steps, _everyone._

Just so you could die feeling less guilty. 

Your shame hits you like a freight train, so hard it knocks you all the way back on the couch as you realize what a monumental fool you had been. 

You _knew_ the angel’s tactics, you _knew_ that they would waltz in here if you opened the door for them and kill everyone in sight without a second thought. Sure exterminators don’t search buildings, it’s a waste of energy, but if they see one is occupied, they won’t hesitate to massacre everyone inside. But you didn’t _care_. You prioritized your own need to save a single life—No, your own need to feel like you _tried_ to save that life—over the welfare of everyone around you. You didn’t even consider the consequences, it took Angel’s literally spelling them out for you to even realize. What had you been worried about just now? Getting thrown out of the hotel? You had almost killed _everyone_ , and _that’s_ what you were thinking about?

Charlie had helped you, Vaggie too. You owe them everything, and you had thrown that away without a second thought. Angel Dust saved your life. He saved you just days ago even though he wouldn’t admit it, and he saved you again yesterday. He saved you from murdering the only real allies you have. 

And on top of that he had to just walk you through your own failures like a child.

“Angel, I-I didn’t” You shake your head, in spite of the throbbing pain it sends down your spine, totally at a loss.

“Yeah, ya fuckin didn’t.” Angel looks…uncomfortable? His anger from a second ago is still there, but he doesn’t seem to know where to direct it. 

“I-I’m sorry.” You say, holding out your hands uselessly.

Angel sighs and runs a gloved hand through his hair, looking conflicted, before throwing his arms up.

“Yeah well, I don’t give a shit. Look…I didn’t want to…You’re a good kid but you’re fuckin stupid and I’ll be fucked by a fuckin angel before I let some two-bit virgin nobody get my fine ass killed by exterminators for no fucking reason! Next time you wanna go play hero, play it where I can’t fuckin see you”

Spinning on one heel, Angel stalks over towards the kitchen. You hear cabinets slamming before he reappears.

“Angel, I—”

“Save it.” Angel spits. He grabs something off the table and throws it at you. Fumbling, you catch it before you realize that it’s a TV remote.

“The princess is on at five. Do whatever the hell you want, I’m gonna go blow off some steam. I need to get the fuck out of this damn hotel”

Before you can say anything else, Angel stomps out the front door and slams it behind him, leaving you in silence. 

You, on the other hand, just sit there in shock.

How long have you been in hell, you wonder. 4 days? 5? And what have you done so far? Killed a handful of demons, maimed several others, and nearly massacred the only three souls in the entire nine circles willing to look past your nature and help you.

You had thought…you had hoped when you discarded the rules of heaven that it would be in the service of something better. Every time you made a decision on earth to throw the rules away, you had hoped for a better solution, for something else to materialize. You had failed then, yes, but you believed that it was because of the system itself, that you could not do better, _be_ better without the support of a reformed heaven. You didn’t have the power, nor the reach.

But now, here you are on your own. You aren’t even trying to _do_ anything, except maybe survive, and all you have accomplished is to wreak havoc and endanger those around you. 

You were so caught up in the morality of what you were doing, in your own morality, you didn’t even think of those around you. 

How have you lost track of yourself so completely?

And Angel, you had been angry about his methods, but in hindsight you doubt he had many options. Charlie and Vaggie together could barely hold you in one place, you may be smaller now, but you are just as strong as any demon, maybe even stronger. What else could Angel have done, realistically?

_He could have killed me._ You realize. Angel had materialized guns in that alleyway, eviscerated those demons. He could have done that to you, set you back days of healing. It would have been easy.

_But he didn’t._

And on top of that, he had approached you just now without anger. Sure he was sarcastic, antagonistic even, but it was your own guilt that caused you to pick a fight. Angel could have completely destroyed you from the moment you woke up, could have told you never to endanger his life again.

_But he didn’t._

He didn’t say a thing until you had presumed to tell him he had no _right_ to save your life.

_Was he…protecting me?_

Sure Angel saved you in the alley, and from killing yourself, but both times he had a plausible ulterior motive. Sparing your feelings, that is a whole new facet of the spider demon you’re not sure you can reconcile.

You lay back on the couch, palm still working the throbbing pain out of your head. You feel like every time you interact with Angel, or any of these demons, you only become less sure of their motives. 

Only one thing you know for sure, and that’s that you made a mistake. On your own in hell, you hadn’t needed to consider the welfare of others before you acted, but you can’t do that anymore. You need to be more careful.

_And you need to apologize_ , you think, _to everyone_.

You also consider trying to thank Angel again for his help, but decide to defer judgement on that particular matter for later. 

_You can do better than this_. You know that you have to, if you plan to stay here under Charlie’s protection, if she will even allow you to stay. 

You vow to do better.

…

Unfortunately for your newfound moral imperative, there is very little _to_ do in the empty hotel. You turn on the TV briefly, fumbling with the unfamiliar remote control and scaring yourself half to death when the machine bursts into life. The news channel tells you that it’s barely past noon, which gives you nearly five hours before you can watch Charlie’s interview. 

Trying to kill time and at least maintain the appearance of productivity, you straighten up the lobby as best you can, stacking paintings in the corners instead of leaving them leaned against every wall, and propping up the refrigerator from where it lay on its side in the corner. You find the gouges in the hardwood floor from your talons and try unsuccessfully to buff them out with a rag before giving up and deciding to ask Charlie how to go about fixing them when she returns. Maybe you can offer her some of your pay? If you are still employed, that is. Again, you aren’t sure of the practical workings of money, or how much is required to fix the floor, but you think you should at least offer. 

Running out of tasks, you head up to your room in search of something else to occupy your time. Browsing your small space, you come across your Angelic robe, still neatly folded and stinking all the way back to heaven on your dresser. You pick up the fabric in one hand, feeling its silky texture even through the grime. 

Every Angel in heaven is gifted a robe, with the 5th choirs and above being allowed to modify their robes into unique clothing. You yourself had never been particularly invested in the modification. The individuality seemed somewhat petty to you who preferred to be known for your deeds and achievements rather than your clothing. Looking at the ruined garment now, all that work you did to be recognized seems especially pointless. Only your clothing survived the fall when even your body was destroyed.

You hesitate for a moment, before tossing the scrap of fabric over one arm and grabbing the small pile of laundry off of the floor. Charlie had showed you how to do laundry yesterday, and you decide that if you’re going to even consider keeping your angelic robe, it should at least be clean. You also strip off the pajamas you’re wearing, tossing them into the machine with the rest, feeling confident that no one will be returning to the hotel any time soon. 

Naked, however, you find your thoughts shifting back towards your new body. When you return to your room, you stand in front of the mirror and look yourself over, trying to ignore all the _other_ changes to your anatomy and focus on the gender.

Your body is softer somehow, with a slight curve to your waist that wasn’t there before. Angels are somewhat more angular than you are, with long necks and ramrod-straight backs, emphasized even more by their genderless bodies and musculature. You still look strong, you can see the muscles pulling under the thin pale skin of your stomach and back, but the effect is much more subtle. Your new breasts are small, and you think that with some sort of binding you could hide them completely. Your features are more feminine, but not by much, and the subtle curve of your spine over and down your legs is less than obvious. 

With the right clothing, your gender wouldn’t be obvious. Charlie had said before that you could change your body to match your internal identity. 

_Do I want that?_

It’s not that your new form is not beautiful, if you ignore the obvious mutilations. The gender itself doesn’t exactly bother you. You haven’t bothered to ask Vaggie or Angel to use non-gendered pronouns when referring to you, though you have noticed Charlie’s careful lack of any pronouns at all, as though she is waiting for you to express a preference.

No, the female pronouns don’t bother you, you feminine form itself isn’t repulsive in any way, certainly not like your destroyed wings, which you still have not gotten used to. In fact, you had always felt a stronger kinship with women than men on earth.

It’s more…you hunt for a way to express your discomfort. Your eyes drift from your form in the mirror to the reflected sliver of your room. Bright against the beige colors of your bed, you catch the edge of the red corset that Angel lent you. You cringe at the unabashedly sexual garment, unable to imagine yourself in such a thing.

_That’s it_ , you realize slowly, _it’s the sexuality_. The corset _bothers_ you because its purpose is obviously sexual, in much the same way the purpose of your new body is sexual. You turn back to yourself in the mirror, eyeing your body with suspicion. 

But Charlie had said that sexuality is a _choice_ , that you don’t have to feel trapped by the purpose of your form.

In fact, Charlie had rejected “purpose” of a body altogether. 

Leaving the bathroom, you walk towards your bed and pick up the lacy red corset. 

To ignore purpose, ignore intention, to reject these things…can you really do that?

“I know you may have had a different purpose before,” You speak aloud, addressing the _bustier_ , “But I’m giving you a new one now. Your new purpose is to hide my wings, to protect my identity. That is all.”

You bring the garment back to the bathroom with you, putting it on the counter before facing yourself in the mirror again. You address yourself this time.

“You may have had a different purpose before, but you’re changed” You keep eye contact, focusing on your familiar yellow irises. “Your purpose here is what you make it. Nothing else. Body be damned”

Then you laugh, both in relief, and because your pun was actually pretty clever. 

…

It takes you a while to get into the corset, and to cinch it tight enough that it fits your much smaller frame, but you are surprised to find it actually fairly comfortable once it’s on. You can see your wings just over the top lip of the red fabric, but under a shirt they would likely be invisible. On top of that, the new curve of your waist compensates for your wings expertly. And, as an added bonus, the corset compresses your stomach, keeping you from aggravating your stitches. The low-grade ache you had been feeling all day is stopped almost completely. The cumulative effect is a slightly less narrow waist and a somewhat larger bust, but overall you look…demonic.

Or you suspect you would look that way if you were wearing other clothes. Standing naked in nothing but a _bustier_ you mostly just look ridiculous. You waste no time retrieving your clothes from the laundry and inspecting yourself. 

_This could work._ Even if Charlie were to ask you to leave tonight, like this you can blend in, you can pretend to be a demon. 

_And if she doesn’t_ as you hope she won’t once you apologize, _I can work here openly._

You just need to make sure that your back stays covered, you think, eyeing the black top of your St. Peter’s cross over the hem of your T-shirt. But otherwise, you’re in the clear. 

Dressed and looking as non-angelic as possible, you head back downstairs to catch Charlie’s interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so full disclosure, I fully planned to have our angel throw the robe away this chapter, so for those of you whose bets placed it as surviving just into the beginning of the hotel, you can technically collect your winnings. But then I got myself thinking about the symbolism of the robe and all that jazz, and another idea popped into my head about what to do with what’s left it, in the long run, and one that more closely fits with our Angel’s character growth, so I pivoted for that. So it will actually be sticking around longer than I had expected. The robe is undying!  
>  As for the dialogue in this chapter, I was doing some research into the transcripts of old animation livestreams with Vivzie, and I found some stuff by her that talks about how much Angel values innocence and wants to protect it, which is, in part, why he likes animals. This was kind of news to me, although it does make some sense, and it did explain some of the softer side of Angel I’ve seen. I tried to work that in to the chapter here with the way he tries to spare our angel’s feelings, because he knows that she would feel terrible about endangering everyone’s lives. It’s not until he gets really upset that he plays that card, and is sort of awkward about it later. I hope that came through in the writing! Angel has a lot of nuance to him, which makes him both fun and challenging to write.   
>  Anyways that all from me guys, see you in the next chapter, where our favorite demon makes his grand entrance.


	20. You Haven’t Had Much Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late upload everyone, I had a very busy day! 
> 
> In this chapter you try to apologize, without much success, while someone new enters the picture...

Chapter 19: You Haven’t Had Much Practice

* * *

It takes you a minute to find the correct station, what with your incomplete understanding of a television remote. You manage to open several menus, and change the language settings twice before you finally land on “666 News”

You recognize the blonde news hostess and the demon in the gasmask from the bounty report from a few days ago. Somehow that recognition makes your stomach sink, and keep on sinking when the blonde demon, seemingly unprompted, overturns a cup of hot coffee into the lap of its co-host. The station cuts almost immediately to commercial over the screams of the masked demon, changing to an ad for something called the “Immediate Murder Professionals.” In spite of the catchy upbeat jingle, you’re still somewhat thrown by the seemingly random violence shown on screen. 

You suppose that this _is_ hell, perhaps maiming your co-host is par for the course…but you hope Charlie will be interviewed by someone other than the crackling blonde demon, just in case. 

You don’t hold out hope for long, though, as when the screen cuts back and the channel intro for “five o’clock” fades, you see Charlie sitting somewhat awkwardly next to the blonde demon, whose neck snaps grotesquely around to face the camera. Charlie looks particularly uncomfortable, even more so when the host gets her name wrong. The demon has a plastered on smile that doesn’t even come close to her solid red eyes, and the way she towers over Charlie has you sweating despite being safe on the couch miles away.

Charlie, for her part, looks equally uncomfortable, and you see her gaze flicker out to the left of the screen. You hope Vaggie is somewhere behind the camera to cheer her on. Charlie takes a deep breath and looks down at the paper in her hands before launching into the talking points you had painstakingly rehearsed the night before.

_At least your melt down doesn’t seem to have shaken her_ , you think hopefully, as Charlie speaks over the obnoxious host, who snarls as she spears a caterpillar off the desk and splatters Charlie with purple fluid. 

Encouragingly, Charlie seems to get into the flow of things, standing up from the desk and walking forward towards the camera, where she is briefly out of focus. The operator seems to take the hint and swing the camera around, showing an animated Charlie preaching to a startled crowd of demons that you assume are the news crew. You smile to yourself, it’s just like Charlie to forget the camera and start speaking to the crowd, as she hooks an arm over a large horned demon’s neck. When she steps away, the camera shakily follows her back to the news table, struggling to return to focus as Charlie finally announces her project.

“Ladies and Gentlemen I’m opening the first of its kind, a hotel that rehabilitates sinners!”

No one in the crowd behind the camera seems to react for a moment, even the painted on-grin of the blonde demon is replaced with slack-jawed shock.

_Oh no._

Charlie sweats under the pressure as the host’s grin returns, more malicious than before. Charlie tries to rally, but the atmosphere is awkward, in spite of her attempts.

Then, she does the trick with the lights, the one where they all center on her, and a piano appears out of nowhere, on the news table of all places.

You can imagine Vaggie groaning in the background as Charlie bursts into song, the two familiar sheep demons backing her up.

“ _I have a dream, I wish to tell”_ Charlie climbs on top of the piano, barely keeping her head in frame, _“about a wonderful fantastic new hotel!”_

The sheep demons seem thrilled, enthusiastically playing on the piano and crooning in the background, but the two news anchors are anything but. The one in the gas mask looks around like it expects someone to yell “cut!”, while the blonde raises a single thin eyebrow and leans away from Charlie. 

“ _Inside of every demon is a rainbow”_ Charlie hops off the table and into the crowd, the camera hurrying to keep up with her. You sigh. The song is catchy, _really_ catchy, even better than the one she had improvised the other night. You suspect she may have even written this one in advance, if the sheet music on the piano is anything to go by.

But it’s so…sweet. Saccharine even. Even if you didn’t know Charlie personally, you would be able to see her complete and genuine enthusiasm from her performance alone as she spins through the crowd. Its heartwarming, but judging by the faces surrounding your pink-cheeked friend, it’s also completely foreign. 

Vaggie had been _really_ right about this one, no one is even tapping a toe, though Charlie seems too preoccupied to notice. To say nothing of her rather inaccurate visions of heaven, “ _cotton candy dreams_?” Heaven is more akin to a military base than anything Charlie is describing. 

You cover your eyes, even as you sway along to the tune, not wanting to see the faces of a dozen unimpressed demons surrounding Charlie.

When the song ends, she is left posing on the news anchor table, piano and sheep demons evaporated, breathing hard. There is a moment of brutally awkward silence, and Charlie just stands there, heart on her sleeve, before the crowd erupts in laughter. 

Charlie seems to deflate, and then practically crumple down onto the desk under the scorn.

_Oh, Charlie, no_. She had been so excited for this interview, and she had put herself out there. _She wrote a song for Michael’s sake_.

Charlie tries to rally by bringing up Angel Dust, who is apparently a “ _patron_ ” of the hotel, although you think “ _believes in the cause_ ” is probably a bit strong for Angel’s motivations, whatever they are. This stumps the reporter for a moment, before it puts a hand to its ear and shoves Charlie off the desk and clear out of frame. 

“Hey!” you say aloud, standing up from the couch, but stop dead when you see the cutaway panel on screen. 

There is Angel Dust, vaulting over rubble and firing off his machine gun, cackling like a madman.

_“I need to go blow off some steam”_

“Oh shit” you hear Charlie say from off camera.

“Oh shit” you repeat.

Angel said he needed to “blow off steam.” Is _this_ what he meant by that? _That seems in-character_ , you decide, but on the day of Charlie’s big interview?

_I argued with Angel on the day of Charlie’s big interview_ , you realize slowly.

_This is all my fault_.

The news broadcast goes momentarily quiet while you sit in shock. The silence draws your attention back to the screen just in time to see the blonde demon launch itself at Charlie, four more arms sprouting out of its red dress. Charlie for her part dodges briefly, then tackles the larger demon as the news room erupts into chaos. You watch, stunned, for a moment, but when the demon in the gas mask runs across the frame screaming and completely on fire, you decide that you’ve seen enough and smack the power button.

What in heaven’s name had just happened. Charlie’s interview had been rough, that was true, and the singing didn’t help, but Angel’s name seemed to have some weight to it, enough to lend credibility to the Happy Hotel. So why did Angel have to go on a violent rampage _today_. 

_Why did I have to send him into a rampage today?_

You tuck your head between your knees and cover it with your arms, wheezing when your corset restricts your breathing.

First you have a complete breakdown during the extermination and nearly get everyone killed, and _then_ you are so unwilling to apologize for it, it sends Angel into a rage-fueled gunfight?

Oh shit indeed.

…

You fully plan to apologize to everyone, both for your performance last night and for motivating Angel’s behavior today, as soon as they walk in the door, but that plan dies the second you see their faces. Charlie’s hair is ragged, and she holds her torn suit-jacket in one hand, although she manages to give you a halfhearted wave as she comes in. Vaggie looks like she might combust at any minute, and stalks straight past you to the couch where she sits resolutely facing the wall.

Even Angel seems to feel bad, and brushes you off with a muttered “’ey toots” before heading towards the refrigerator you had leaned up against the wall and digging out a popsicle.

No one looks in the mood to talk to you, but you feel compelled to apologize, so you try your luck with Charlie first, figuring she will be the most receptive.

She looks miserable, knees pulled up on top of a crate. Angel cracks wise about needing more food in the hotel, but even he seems stymied by Charlie’s silent dejection. 

“Hey,” You say, edging up to her and trying to get a read on any emotion that may surface other than “heartbreak”

“Hey,” Charlie smiles up at you momentarily before looking back at the ground.

“I saw your interview” You try, Charlie immediately winces and turns her head away. _Bad topic, try something else_. “I really liked your song.” You flounder.

Charlie smiles a bit, but doesn’t look up. 

Maybe you should just move straight into your apology?

“I, um, I wanted to apologize, for last night, and—”

“Do you think we could talk about this later?” Charlie glances at you sideways, looking like she’s about to cry.

“Um, yes, sorry.” You mutter, as Charlie pushes herself off the crate and walks towards the front door.

_That…didn’t go well_. You have no idea how to read her reaction. Does she want you gone? Is this just a bad time?

You shake your head and tell yourself that Charlie asked for space and that you should try to accommodate her instead of focusing on yourself, so instead you turn your attention to Vaggie and Angel, who for some unknown reason are sharing the couch.

It may be the only place to sit in the lobby aside from the wooden crates, but if you were Angel you would avoid the murderous aura Vaggie is currently generating like the plague, if only to preserve life and limb. 

“Vaggie,” You try. The smaller demon, who is reclining on the couch with an arm over her eyes, doesn’t even look at you when she responds.

“What?”

“I wanted to apologize. For yesterday.” Vaggie raises her arm slightly and glares at you from under it, but you don’t let it deter you. “I didn’t think about the danger I was putting you all in, that was selfish of me. I’m sorry.” 

Vaggie raises an eyebrow, looking at you sideways. Her single eye forces her to turn her whole head to achieve the look, but the effect of unimpressed apathy is still pretty clear.

“Uh, okay?” She says, and then covers her eyes again.

“To you too, Angel, I’m sorry” You look over Vaggie to where Angel is sucking suggestively on his popsicle.

“Yeah whatever toots.” Angel doesn’t even pretend to look your way.

_What is going on?_ You have the sense that your apology didn’t really go through, maybe you’re doing this wrong? You haven’t exactly apologized formally to anyone before. Are there some kind of rules you’re breaking? Some sort of technique you should follow?

You decide to keep going while you have momentum.

“And, um, Vaggie” you nervously fidget with your broken horn.

“What?” Vaggie sounds demonstrably more annoyed this time, and you almost lose your nerve.

“I’m also sorry for what happened on the news today. I think that was my fault.”

Vaggie takes her arm off her eyes fully this time, looking at you with a hostile expression.

“And how is that, exactly?”

You shrink, but keep talking.

“Well I, that is, Angel and I, were in an argument before the show. I think what I said may have made him mad enough to go out and…” You trail off, unsure of how to phrase your involvement.

Then Angel jumps in.

“Woah woah _woah_ toots, you don’t get to take credit for my ass-kicking today. That shit was for me and no one else, especially not your pale skinny ass.” He gestures with his popsicle.

“I just mean that what I said may have been insensitive because—”

“Oh, what, you thought you hurt my feelings?” Angels voice raises in pitch to sounds childlike as he wipes away an imaginary tear, “Oh boo-hoo, the teacher’s pet was so mean to me. Yeah right. There ain’t no teacher here so who are you trying to suck up to?”

You gape at Angel. _Suck up_. You are _trying_ to apologize, doesn’t he see that?

“You want to talk about ‘sucking up’ Angel?” Vaggie jumps in and shoulders you out of the way, her hair standing nearly on end, “While you were out there trying to suck up to your stupid ‘fans’ or whoever the fuck you have a ‘reputation’ with, you left Charlie and me with our fucking pants down.”

How did things get this out of hand this quickly, you just wanted to apologize to everyone…

“Oh baby, no one wants to see you with your pants down trust me,” Angel bites back, which only seems to infuriate Vaggie all the more.

“ _Lo_ _Juro por Dios que te mataré, pendejo.”_

“Hey, um, how about we all calm down for a minute and—" You try.

“And you!” Vaggie reels to face you, her face inches from yours in spite of her shorter stature, “what the hell do you think your little ‘apology’ is going to do? What do you want, me to yell at you? Would that make you feel better? Because if you were _really_ sorry, you would stop making everything about _you_ and start thinking about someone _else_ for a change, because you’re apology doesn’t _fix_ anything, it just makes _you_ feel less _guilty_!” Vaggie’s breath is hot on your face as she stares you down.

You open your mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. _“All about you?”_ Is that really what you are doing? You had thought that an apology would fix things, help to wipe the slate clean, let you start over with everyone. You had wanted to leave _behind_ your selfishness. Is an apology just another _type_ of selfishness?

“That’s what I thought.” Vaggie says, throwing herself back down on the couch and gripping the bridge of her nose with one hand.

Admittedly, everyone seems incredibly stressed. You had been so eager to apologize and get rid of all this guilt, that you hadn’t stopped to think that this might not be the time for apologies. Charlie had said she wanted to talk about this later, but you had pressed on with Vaggie and Angel anyway, maybe that was just—

You stop dead in your thoughts as _something_ enters your periphery. It’s like someone flips a switch and all the background noise fades from the world, just melts away into soft muffled static. It’s like the lights in the room dim ever so slightly, and the shadows creep out from the corners just a bit, just enough to lap at your ankles, just enough to breathe down the back of your neck.

You barely feel yourself back up before you press up against the wallpaper. All of your feathers are on end, your muscles chorded as you scan the room frantically. _What is that?_ It’s like ice, all the way up your spine and into your brain, and every one of your nerves is firing telling you to _run_ and get as far away from whatever _it_ is as possible.

“Uh, babe, you ok? You’re looking kind of…like you’re trippin’ balls to be honest”

You look at Angel, pupils dilating and constricting as your brain tries to locate the source of this immediate and crippling sense of danger. Angel stops eating his popsicle, which he hadn’t done even when squaring off with Vaggie, and looks at you with something that might approach genuine concern. 

Another wave of panic washes over you, and you blink your second eyelids, instinctively trying to protect your eyes from whatever danger you _know_ is coming your way.

“Oh what the fuck? Quit doing that with your eyes, you’re freakin’ me out, what the fuck is going on with you?”

Vaggie finally seems to register that something is really wrong, and she sits up to look at you properly. You’re breathing hard, talons digging into the hardwood floor, scanning the room in every direction. You can’t pin this thing down, it’s like the shadows _themselves_ are suddenly alive and crawling up the walls, pooling out across the floor. 

“What the hell is wrong with her?” Vaggie asks, looking sideways at Angel.

“Fuck if I know, looks like some kinda panic attack or somethin’, Hey babe can ya hear me? Ya need ta breathe.”

You snap your head to Angel when he stands, making him flinch. 

“I don’t—Something is, something is wrong. Can’t you two feel that? It’s like—” Undeterred Angel stands fully and steps over to you, extending a hand.

“It’s like what?” He asks, slowly advancing.

The front door closes quietly in the background.

“It’s like—”

Angel’s hand lands on your shoulder, and suddenly the feeling is _gone_ , it evaporates like it was never there, like some giant unseen predator had been waiting to pounce and suddenly shifted its gaze elsewhere and all you can feel is Angel’s uncertainty. You let out a breath you weren’t aware you were holding and look up, feeling your pupils relax back to normal.

“It stopped. I don’t know what it was, it was like—like _intention_ , really bad intention. You two really didn’t feel that?”

Vaggie shakes her head, looking confused.

“I didn’t feel shit doll-face, but I’m glad you stopped doing that freaky shit with your eyes. And what the fuck, do you have two eyelids?” Angel’s hand disappears from your shoulder almost the instant you relax. His voice returns to its regular volume and he goes back to eating his popsicle.

The front door slams in the background, more loudly this time.

“Um yeah, it’s called a nictitating membrane, it protects my eyes,” You blink your opaque second eyelid to demonstrate and Angel winces, “from debris, it’s actually—”

“Yeah I don’t care, just, keep that shit put away its super gross.”

The door slams again, and you look over Angel’s lower shoulders, wondering what Charlie is _doing_ over there. 

“Um, Vaggie?” Charlie’s voice comes from the entryway.

“What?” Vaggie calls back.

Charlie skids down the hall and stops by the couch, looking flustered.

“The Radio Demon is at the door” She makes a smiling motion with her hands as a bead of sweat tracks its way down her temple

“WHAT” Vaggie asks, making you jump.

_The Radio Demon?_

“Uh, who?” Angel asks, leaning one arm on your head.

“What should I do?” Charlie drags her hands down her face, and you hear real panic edging her voice.

“Well don’t let him _in_ ,” Vaggie’s gaze darts between Charlie and the front door. You swat Angel’s arm away and sidestep to look at the entryway.

Silhouetted in the doorframe is a tall figure, fuzzy through the red stained glass. The shadow it casts on the floor is murky, and unnaturally long in the evening light, extending down the hallway almost to your feet. As you look at the dark splotch, it seems to writhe under your gaze crawling across the wood floor towards you. In the pit of your stomach you get that feeling again.

A predator has you in its sights. It's quieter this time, less overwhelming, but it more than roots you where you stand. 

It’s bloodlust, pure and simple. 

And it want’s _in_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all,  
>  So I’ve been toying with this for a while now, but in case it’s not clear, our Angel is sort of a low-grade empath. She can feel especially strong or directed emotions of those around her, which are amplified by proximity or touch. And of course, she can look into the souls of others, like she did in an earlier flashback. I think this ability is specific to her Choir, and I will get into it later, but for now think of her as having sort of an animal instinct about people and their feelings (like a dog), which help her know when she’s the target of aggression. The radio demon is pretty much 100% bad vibes.   
>  Anyways I hope you’re as excited about the entrance of Al as I am! I have no idea how I churned out 19 chapters before my favorite character even makes an appearance but, honestly, I’ve been having a great time thus far so all’s fair in love and fanfic, right? I’m going to call this the end of “part one” so to speak. My outline for this story is loosely divided into 5 parts, the first being “before Alastor,” for lack of a better term. As far as I can tell, these parts should all be roughly the same length, although I haven’t actually written them yet, but the outline has some key events for each that should fill up all the space. So based on my current pace, I think this fic will be around 100 chapters and take the better part of a year to write, assuming I complete it, which I hope to do. WOW. So yeah, strap in folks cause this will be a looooong ride.   
>  In terms of the next chapter, I think I will pace it the same as I did the scenes here that are included in the pilot, as in I will avoid most of the dialogue and instead focus on the observations of the MC, since I’m fairly sure most of you have seen the pilot. Does that work for you guys?   
>  Oh and since this is the end of a “part” so to speak, there will be no upload tomorrow so that I can hash out more details for “part 2,” I will be back posting again on Thursday!  
>  Ok that’s all from me folks, see you soon! 
> 
> Oh and translations:  
> Lo Juro por Dios que te mataré, pendejo. = I swear to god I'll kill you, asshole


	21. The Red Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE 10/2: No chapter today guys I have a pretty killer migraine, if I can catch up, I may do a double upload sometime next week :)
> 
> In this chapter, you meet a powerful demon and wonder just how much danger that demon poses...

Chapter 20: The Red Queen

* * *

Sometimes, on earth, when the responsibilities of your role were too overwhelming, when the hypocrisy seemed too blatant to overcome, when you didn’t know how to move forward, you would run away from it all. 

You would fly as far as you could, if the ocean was nearby, you would fly there for as far as your wings would carry you, out over the blue nothingness. In the endless void of water and sky, your wings aching from the exertion, it was easier to lose yourself in the majesty of creation. When you could fly no further, you would lay on your back in the crystal water and imagine that the sea and the sky were one in the same, merging into one fabric, and that you yourself were painted blue, a distilled drop of horizon on a blank cyan canvas.

Everything was one color, even you yourself. It gave you a sense of peace. 

The demon at the door appears to you, for one confusing instant, as the exact photonegative of that feeling. He merges with the burnt red sky behind him, appearing out of the haze like a droplet of blood running in a rivulet down the atmosphere to land on your doorstep. 

And his whole aura—the moment you see him it’s like your sight has been stained crimson. He radiates a fuzzy red fog, a sanguine white-noise that tunnels your vision down to the single point that is his glowing red eyes. Disturbingly, like a statue, his eyes seem to follow you no matter what his actual gaze is on, and that combined with the strange fuzziness in the air sets your skin crawling as though it could peel away from your bones and flee the hotel altogether.

The demon wastes no time, in fact once he crosses the threshold he seems to never stay in one place, flitting around Charlie like a deranged bird. With nothing more than a rushed introduction of “Alastor, pleasure to be meeting you sweetheart, quite a pleasure,” the demon is through the entryway and making himself more than at home..

 _The Radio Demon_ , Charlie had called him, and you can guess why. Gripped in his hand is some kind of microphone, although you can sense even from this distance that the object is something more than inanimate but less than truly alive. Just focusing your eyes on it gives you vertigo, it’s like the image of the microphone is superimposed with a thousand faces. That and something darker, something with branching horns and a corrupted, gnarled form. 

Shaking your head to dislodge the image, you notice the strange lilt of the demon’s voice, an accent that you place as slightly out of date in the human world, maybe by a century or so. You can’t tell if the accent is an affect, designed to heighten the “radio announcer” persona or a natural mode of speech that hints at a death date. You aren’t overly familiar with human radio, much less the nuance of accents, but you expect that a complex performance is not beyond this strange demon’s design. 

On top of that, the figure himself carries a tremendous amount of background noise. He seems to be surrounded in a kind of tidal flow of static that your feathers pick up like tiny antennae and radiate straight through your skin and into your bones. The sensation sets your teeth on edge and your fingernails itching. 

The static is only intermittently interrupted by what seems to be an audience, laughing and cheering, alongside an array of cartoonish sound-effects. The contrast between the palpably malevolent aura this _Alastor_ figure carries with him, and his flamboyant radio gimmick is somehow deeply disturbing, more so than you think even open hostility would have been.

Thoroughly uncomfortable, you quietly side step back to Angel’s side, and try to copy his unfazed demeanor as he slurps loudly on the remains of his popsicle.

As you shuffle backwards towards the spider demon, Vaggie rockets past you, Valiant spear in hand and a snarl on her lips, brandishing the weapon and freezing the much larger demon in his tracks. Charlie looks on from the doorway in what is increasingly becoming more confusion than fear, while Vaggie keeps her back to you, all attention focused on the Radio Demon.

The spear seems to stop his stream-of consciousness speech, but it also incites a wave of that gut wrenching _intention_ you had experienced so acutely just a few moments ago. The demon is smiling, wider than before even, but his whole stance radiates bloodlust. You see the muscles in his arm twitch briefly, as if contemplating some sudden violent gesture, and you are gripped with the sudden urge to rush up and drag Vaggie away from the towering figure. 

Without thinking, you take a half-dozen steps forward, but freeze when the crimson demon’s luminous gaze flicks from the spear tip to you. Just a glance and this demon pins you in place like a frighted rabbit. _So much for keeping a low profile_. You had half a mind to run and hide a few seconds ago, but your abortive attempt to back up Vaggie sends those hopes running for cover. 

Vaggie, for her part, is completely undeterred. Either she, once again, can’t feel the punishing wave of vicious intent pointed her way, or she is displaying an impressive amount of bravery in the face of what you are certain is deadly force.

Brandishing her spear again, she hisses at the demon in front of her, “Don’t you look away from me,” then turns her face slightly towards you and urges you back with a motion of her head. Uncertain, you take a half step towards Angel as the Radio Demon’s gaze returns slowly back down to Vaggie. 

“I know your game,” Vaggie hisses, pressing the spear into Alastor’s throat, “I won’t let you hurt anyone here you pompous cheesy talk-show shitlord.”

The Radio Demon doesn’t even flinch at the blade glinting against his high collar, opting instead to push it away with a single gloved finger and laugh the smaller woman off.

“Dear,” he chuckles, “If I wanted to hurt anyone here,” you feel your vision narrowing sickeningly down to those two glowing red eyes as the Radio Demon tilts his head unnaturally to the side. The static surges, like a riptide dragging you into the demon’s orbit as the hotel disappears into electronic glitching and vaguely familiar alchemical symbols.

_“I would have done so already”_

You know this is a display, that this Alastor character is trying to assert his dominance, show off his power without actually making an explicit threat, in the same way animals flash teeth and claws and batt at the air instead of actually fighting. 

You know it’s a performance, but you also feel the bitter weighted truth of it. You’ve been feeling it since before this man entered the building, presumably even before he walked up the front steps. The Radio Demon emanates the kind of chaos that angels fear in hell. The bloodlust, it’s like all your training on Lucifer has come to macabre life. This is _exactly_ the kind of power you suspected Michael feared in hell. 

You think, in one terrifying moment of freefall, that this demon might even have been a match for _you_ in your angelic form. The thought sends you spiraling.

And then all at once the air clears and the Radio Demon is back to his previous smiling flamboyant façade, insisting that he wants to _help_. You waste no time darting back to Angel.

The offer of _help_ , paired with his thinly veiled hostility, very nearly makes you laugh, how could he possibly help?

But Charlie beats your question to the punch, “Um, you want to help…with?”

“This ridiculous thing you’re trying to do! This hotel! _I_ want to help you run it.”

As strange and unnerving as that offer is, you find yourself more drawn to Alastor’s rough treatment of Vaggie than his actual words. His focus seems entirely drawn to Charlie, his performance is clearly designed for her, but he seems to be multitasking, charming the princess of hell with his voice and continuously angering Vaggie with his actions. In the span of a few seconds, he manages to position himself _between_ Charlie and Vaggie, before planting an arm on Vaggie’s head, and finally shoving her bodily away and straight into the propped-up refrigerator. 

Standing and dusting herself off, Vaggie stalks back towards you and Angel Dust, who has seated himself on the couch to watch the fireworks. You can’t tell if Alastor enjoys angering Vaggie, in much the same way Angel seems to, or if he is exacting some kind of childish pay-back for her earlier threats. 

_Or maybe…he’s separating her from Charlie?_

The though is sudden an unbidden, as you watch the demon make his pitch to your friend, citing a desire for “entertainment” as the basis of his offer of “help.” You can practically feel Charlie softening, in spite of Vaggie’s earlier warnings. If the Radio Demon had recognized that Vaggie was hostile to his presence, _and_ that she and Charlie were in good rapport, it would make sense for him to try and separate the two to improve his chances.

You glance sideways at Vaggie, who is practically fuming. 

That would require some very quick and accurate observation. Vaggie hadn’t even been in the news cast. Sure Charlie is easy to pin down, she wears her heart so far out on her sleeve it gives you vertigo, but Vaggie?

_Could he really be thinking that far ahead?_

You watch the Radio Demon as he glances back to where you, Vaggie, and Angel Dust are seated, gesturing to you and saying something about “loathsome sinners.” That bloodlust he seems to radiate has faded, significantly, to the point where you can barely detect it, simmering beneath the smiling surface. _How does he turn that on and off so quickly?_ You wonder briefly, disturbed all over again. 

Okay, this demon is obviously powerful, and clearly _very_ evil, by whatever metric you can use in your current form to measure such a thing. You gut is telling you to get him _out_ of the hotel, or to get _yourself_ out, with no room for argument. But cutting away Vaggie just to make it easier to convince Charlie? That’s just a little too…insidious?

The demon twirls Charlie in a short dance as a single bar of out-of-date music plays behind him. He is so flashy, so unabashed in his displays of power. You doubt he is the type to play a long-con like that.

“I want to watch the scum of the world struggle to climb up the hill of betterment, only to repeatedly trip and tumble down into the fiery pit of failure.” The Radio Demon’s static is momentarily replaced with distorted screaming as his face seems to glow with its own red light.

Everyone looks uncomfortable.

 _Yeah_ , you decide, _he’s not the complex plan sort_. This demon seems more the type to kill you outright if you don’t play along, rather than orchestrate some unsung master scheme.

“Sooo, uh, what’s the deal with smiles over there?” Angel asks. You turn towards him, from your perch on the arm of the couch, and tune into Vaggie’s response.

She seems surprised at Angel’s ignorance, although that would explain Angels seeming disinterest in their new deadly guest.

“The Radio Demon, one of the most powerful beings Hell has ever seen?” Vaggie tries, but Angel just shrugs.

“Eh, not big on politics.”

You roll your eyes. You hadn’t wanted to chock Angel’s unflappable attitude to a simple lack of interest, but there you go.

Sighing, Vaggie launches into a rather theatrical explanation of Alastor’s rise to power. She really gets into the performance, hunching her shoulders and raising her hands like claws for emphasis. Overall it’s somewhat hyperbolic, but you do gather two pieces of crucial information.

Firstly, Alastor is a mortal soul, which means he was dammed to hell. Mortal souls, you know, are generally considered _less_ powerful than originally angelic or demonic souls, although not fundamentally different. You suppose this gives you and Alastor a point of common ground, as you yourself were likely a human at some distant point in the past. You assume…you think…probably. But crucially, that probably gives him an exploitable weakness in the form of some elaborate, ironic, perhaps even poetic punishment that the Thrones so love to inflict on the damned. 

More pressingly, however, Vaggie calls Alastor an “Overlord,” a phrase which you remember from your initial 9th choir training. Overlords are power figures in hell, like generals or perhaps dictators, _like Michael_. In your briefings, you and the rest of the recruits had been strictly instructed never to face an Overlord unless explicitly told by a commanding officer, and never without copious backup. The chances of meeting one during an extermination were slim to none, and the only record of one being slain was from centuries ago, and even then, only by Gabriel himself. That information is outdated, certainly, but Vaggie seems to be speaking in the time frame of centuries. At the very least, she confirms your own terrifying suspicions, that this demon could rival you in your original angelic form.

You decide pointedly _not_ to consider the difference in ability in your _current_ form.

Angel, however, persists with his blasé attitude, laughing at Vaggie’s theatrics.

“He looks like a strawberry pimp” Angel giggles, elbowing you in the ribs and nearly knocking you off the couch in the process. Startled, you feel your wings flex against the fabric of your corset, instinctually trying to flap in spite of their confinement, before you regain your balance. You shoot a look at Angel, while Vaggie stalks off to wrest Charlie from the Radio Demon’s apparently diabolical clutches. 

Alastor makes no move to stop her, instead opting to wander the walls and inspect the paintings, humming to himself over fragments of broken music and static-riddled voices . You get that sense again that he’s watching you, or that _something_ is watching you. The eyeball motif in the lobby certainly isn’t helping, but the demon himself has an aura of perpetual observation.

Angel elbows you again, this time actually knocking you off the couch arm and forcing your attention away from the demon stalking the halls.

“Angel!” you yelp, landing hard and looking up at the spider where he laughs at you over the arm of the couch. 

“Sorry toots, didn’t realize how light ya are. You should really eat a sandwich or somethin’ sheesh.” Angel snickers. 

You stand and brush yourself off, huffing and sitting next to Angel on the couch. You pretend to be miffed, but honestly, you feel relieved that Angel doesn’t seem to be holding any grudges about your earlier fight. 

“Aye, don’t be mad babe,” Angel slings an arm over you and pulls you to his side. The fur poking out over the top of his suit jacket tickles your nose and forces you to laugh, in spite of yourself.

“That’s better. You needa’ stop frowning so much, ya gonna get wrinkles.” Angel crosses his legs at the thigh and idly watches Vaggie speak urgently to Charlie across the room.

You sigh. Angel has a knack for distracting you from your anxiety, but you can’t ignore the obvious presence in the room forever.

“Angel,” You ask slowly. The spider demon just grunts noncommittally in response. “Are you really not worried about ‘smiles’ over there?”

Angel hums for a moment, and watches Charlie walk determinedly away from Vaggie and back towards the Radio Demon, before shrugging.

“I’ve seen his type before, it ain’t nothin’ new. Trust me, if they think ya scared of ‘em, it only makes it that much worse. Plus, I mean just _look_ at those shoes”

That’s…not really an answer to your question, you don’t think, although you do notice Alastor’s long wing-tip shoes for the first time and crack a small smile. You wonder if demons can smell fear, like dogs, or bees? 

Angel does have a point, you suppose, and after all, this _is_ Charlie’s hotel. Ultimately, the decision is up to her.

You rub your arm idly, the fantom of Charlie’s ironclad grip from last night ghosting over your skin. Charlie is stronger than she appears, you decide. 

Across the room, your friend seems completely unintimidated by Alastor, even calling him “Al,” which you find both suicidal and strangely amusing, although less so when the Radio Demon manifests more of that strange dark aura replete with faint red symbols. Charlie however forges ahead.

“So, I’m taking your offer to help—on the condition that there be no trickster, voodoo strings attached.” Charlie smiled brightly at the taller demon.

“So, it’s a deal then?” Alastor twirls his microphone and extends a single gloved hand to Charlie, from which a powerful surge of energy erupts, nearly blinding you with its sudden intensity. Squinting into the strange green light, you barely have time to get your bearings, a strange powerful wind whipping your hair into your face, before Charlie refuses the hand.

“Nope! No shaking, no deals.” Charlie holds her arms out in front of her defensively, the green light evaporating without a trace as she instead cites her authority as “Princess of Hell” to command Alastor to, for all intents and purposes, help until he gets bored and leaves.

The taller demon shrugs, his microphone disappearing in a puff of reddish smoke and seems satisfied. You are relieved for approximately half a second before he turns and starts heading your direction. Angel, thankfully, gets up casually and moves to sit at the barstools by the welcome desk. Keeping your head down, you follow after Angel, hearing Alastor behind you.

“Smile my dear, you know you’re never fully dressed without one!”

You wince as you hear Vaggie snarl in response, but keep walking until you reach the welcome area. Angel, as far as you can tell, has lost interest in the whole show now that the imminent threat of death seems to have cooled down, and sits with his back to the rest of the room, idly scrolling on his phone. You can’t quite muster the same nonchalance, and instead stand with your hands folded and try to look inconspicuous. 

“And where _is_ your hotel staff.” You turn and see Charlie gesture towards Vaggie, who is glaring daggers at Alastor. Charlie glances furtively over to you, but you hold up your hands defensively, hoping she won’t set the demon on your trail. 

The effort is wasted, however, when the towering figure makes his way over to you anyway. Angel, sensing his approach, spins in his chair and crosses his legs, looking unimpressed and garnering the demon’s interest.

“And what can you do my effeminate fellow?”

Taking this as your que to leave, you start to shuffle awkwardly away from the pair.

“I can suck your dick.” Angel offers with complete nonchalance, which combined with the immediate ensuing microphone feedback that pierces the room, makes you flinch and hurry your pace. Standing with Angel was clearly the wrong decision. You decide it would be much more prudent to take your chances with Vaggie, who, while belligerent, is far less likely to offer sexual favors to an infamous genocidal demon lord. 

“And what about you, darling?”

The lilting accent comes from your immediate left. There’s no sound before it, no soft footsteps or anything to indicate someone walking up to you. Nothing, just silence and then a voice. Your fight-or-flight instincts react by launching you backwards violently, where you crash into a derelict side table. 

Your momentum carries you over the table, and you fully expect to hit the ground and bring the table down on top of you. Instead, in a swish of quiet static, a hand catches you around the shoulders and sets you upright. The static persists, a soft but insistent hum that crackles along your skin invasively.

You open your eyes, which land immediately on the hand, covered in a leather driving glove, perched on your shoulder. You follow the hand up to a red jacketed arm, and then to a broad yellow smile on a corpse-gray face.

And those glowing red eyes.

 _How did he sneak up on me?_ And more importantly, _how did he get behind me so fast_?

Eyes blown wide, you can’t do anything but stand there, pinned between the towering Radio Demon with his hand on your shoulder, and the side table propped up by his other hand. 

“As I said, what can you do, you clumsy little thing?”

Angel’s answer to the same question pops unbidden into your head, and in spite of your stomach churning fear, you feel yourself blush furiously. You try to lean backwards, away from the Demon’s face and over the small end table, but he just follows you, keeping his head the same distance from yours, smile widening.

Suddenly, bent backwards over the table, you feel like a particularly choice cut of steak. The Radio Demon’s yellow teeth glint menacingly in the low light. _Is he going to eat me? Right here in Charlie’s lobby?_ You recall all of the other demons so eager tear you to shreds, the hungry look in their eyes, and recognize that intention in the face before you. 

You are gripped with the sudden irrational certainty that this demon can somehow _smell_ your blood through your clothes and skin, and is moments away from starting some sort of hellish feeding frenzy.

Before you can panic however, Charlie’s voice pipes up from above your head, and you crane your neck backwards to see her standing on the other side of the table.

“She,” Charlie looks at you for confirmation, and it takes you a second to realize that she’s checking your pronoun preference. As you are moments away from being gutted and carved up by this apparently infamously violent demon, it really doesn’t seem like the time.

You nod slightly at Charlie’s upside-down face. She smiles and continues, “was just hired, she is in charge of the rehabilitation programs for our patrons.”

“She is?” Alastor croons above you, his attention drawn back to his original target.

“I am?” You ask, equally baffled.

And then suddenly the Radio Demon’s presence is gone, and he’s back behind Charlie, leading her away with a hand on her waist. The lack of balancing weight causes the table to flip abruptly, and you finish the fall you had so graciously been spared earlier, landing in a heap under the upturned table. Groaning slightly and rubbing your ribs where your squished wings had absorbed your fall, you push the table off of you and catch Angel laughing uproariously from his seat.

Your aching wings however are the last thing on your mind, and you can’t help but smile yourself when you realize that Charlie has just implicitly assured that you are _still welcome in the hotel_ , and, on top of that, _still have a job_. Ill-timed suicidal outburst, botched apology, and fears about your job security had been buried somewhat by the oppressive shadow of the Radio Demon, but Charlie’s assurance lifts a weight you weren’t even aware you were carrying.

Your smile doesn’t last long, as Alastor announces loudly from across the room “Well now, this just won’t do!” and Angel hauls you up by the back of your oversized T-shirt to go witness whatever madness is happening over there. 

Frantically, you seize the hem of your top and try to stop it from riding up, exposing the cross on your back or, Heaven forbid, the bright red lace of your _bustier_. No one, much to your relief, seems to be looking in your direction, being far more engrossed in the tiny soot-covered creature Alastor appears to have materialized out of the fireplace with nothing more than a snap of his fingers.

You stand, shirt still held by the scruff in Angel’s hand, and see a single bright orange eye open on the ashy black mass. The creature snakes itself once, dislodging the soot and exposing a tiny female demon, still with that single staring eye.

“This little darling is Niffty!” Alastor exclaims with what is fast becoming a trademark grin, while you try to parse out how exactly he had pulled a living _demon_ from nothing more than a pile of ashes. _And repaired the fireplace in the process_ , you think nervously.

Niffty, as she seems to be called, lands briskly on her feet and introduces herself with the kind of manic enthusiasm that rivals even Charlie. Her one pupil constricts to a pin point as her gaze darts across the four of you.

“Why are you all women?” The tiny demon asks, which gives you pause, although Angel doesn’t even react. _Does this happen to him often?_ You have a moment to wonder, before you feel yourself being suddenly lifted off the ground by tiny hands and hear Niffty say “Are there any men here?”

Niffty appears to overshoot she amount of strength needed to lift you, launching you bodily into the air. You have a bizarre moment of relief when the back of your mind realizes that this probably means that your bones are still hollow, the same as when you were an angel, before you crash into the startled arms of Angel Dust, who sets you back on your feet with an affronted scoff.

“Oh wow sorry about that, you don’t weigh a thing!” The little demon giggles almost psychotically, before noticing Charlie still suspended in her other hand and setting her down with a frantic “oh, I’m sorry, that was rude.”

And then in a pink blur, she is off, exclaiming her distaste and schizophrenically ridding the lobby of cobwebs and dust bunnies. 

You don’t even have time to fully process the motion before a burst of green light pulls your and everyone else’s attention to your right. Near the welcome desk an entire table has materialized, along with some kind of winged demon. This time, you catch the tail end of reality-distorting static and another appearance of those strange symbols the Radio Demon seems to generate, confirming your suspicions that _yes_ , Alastor is materializing demons out of thin air seemingly just for the showmanship. 

_Or as a display of power_. You think, again.

The demon at the table reveals himself to be some sort of feline when he presses his ears flat to his head and hisses at the Radio Demon. He also reveals a penchant for gambling, if the poker table currently dematerializing behind his spread arms, and the tiny card-like suits embossed on his red wings are any indication. Some tiny, obsolete voice in the back of your head starts tallying sins.

Alastor identifies this new demon as “Husker,” although he also refers to him as “my good friend” which based on the swearing and threats does not at all appear to be the case. 

You steal a sideways glance to Angel, for whom profanity and insults seem tandem to friendship, or at least tolerance, and decide that maybe that’s just the way of things in Hell. Angel doesn’t glance at you, and is instead working up a rather disturbing and oddly hungry gaze towards the new winged feline. 

Uncomfortable, you turn back towards the theatrics, where Husker looks moments away from clawing Alastor to shreds before the taller demon offers him a flask of something labelled simply “cheap booze.” Husker calms down rather quickly after that, and you notice that, like the fireplace, the welcome desk has been repaired and converted into some kind of bar. 

That little voice in the back of your head racks up another sin tally, before you carefully remind it _where you are_ and politely suggest that it _fly off back_ to wherever it came from. 

Vaggie, to her credit, makes a token effort to protest the addition of alcohol before Angel quite literally tackles her to the ground and proceeds to shamelessly flirt with the feline bartender. Charlie, for her part, seems totally smitten, enthusiastically greeting the new demons and declaring just how “amazing” the updates are. While your heart is with Vaggie on this one, as is your gut, you can feel your resolve crumbling in the face of Charlies sheer, blinding enthusiasm. She had been near hopeless not even an hour ago, and how here she is practically vibrating with excitement.

 _Sure,_ it means your forced proximity to a demon that literally makes your skin crawl. But for Charlie, it can’t be all bad, can it?

Then, the music starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH ALASTOR! Oh man did you guys feel that sexual tension? Cause lord knows our MC and a certain radio demon definitely did NOT, lol.  
> Ok just a few quick notes this time around:  
> First off, a longer chapter this time to kick off part 2, I know the pacing might have been a bit strange since I don’t want to drag out the parts that were included in the pilot episode for too long. I plan to get through everything else by the end of the next chapter :).  
> ALSO, classes just started back up for me. I’m not in too many, but there may be some inconsistencies with uploads as I get into the rhythm of school and work and fanfic all together. Considering I get the most writing done currently between 12 and 3 am, that kind of needs to be altered lol. But I will keep you guys posted! And still try to upload every weekday!  
> Alright that’s all for now my pretties, I’ll see you tomorrow for the song and dance!
> 
> Also I want to say another big thank you for all the comments! You are all so sweet <3 I love you guys!!!


	22. A Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I hope everyone had a good weekend in spite of everything going on in the world. Here is your daily dose of escapism, because actual Hell is a lot more fun than 2020 lol, anyways, as always, Hazbin Hotel belongs to the lovely Vivziepop and not me! Enjoy!
> 
> In this chapter, you find yourself a bit overwhelmed by the demons around you...

Chapter 21: A Raven

* * *

You love music. You’ve always loved music.

Heaven is a lot of things: efficient, righteous, beautiful even, but it is also notably simple, straightforward. Music in heaven fulfills functions: battle hymns, work songs, the occasional musical message sent long distances with Gabriel’s horn. But none of these musical forms exist simply for the sake of themselves. As far as you know, _nothing_ in heaven exists for the sake of itself, everything has its place and purpose. 

Earth had shown you something else, something indulgent and wonderful, and you were smitten immediately. The religious hymns, the differences between the cultures you visited, even the strange thumping modern music that slowly took over at the end of your tenure. All of it was emotional, beautiful, even when it hurt to listen to, or you didn’t understand the sounds or the words, human music made you _feel_. And _feeling_ is something angels don’t do often. Angels are a race of actions, not thoughts. 

So you love music, because it brings something out of you that you love, it connects you to the humans. 

You are, however, seriously questioning that love. 

_The Radio Demon is evil_ , you remind yourself, _and any attempts to endear himself to us are diversions._ You tell yourself that you can’t trust him. You grab the floor with your talons to keep your feet from tapping when the tune starts, and repeat over and over in your head _you cannot trust him_

But when the Radio Demon starts singing, you find your hips swaying. 

_Traitors_ , you think, watching as the sneering demon seems to unravel and re-weave the hotel around you.

Like the threats, you know that this is a performance, designed to force you to lower your guard, to endear the Radio Demon at the very least to Charlie, whom he spins and dips along to the music.

Not that Charlie had had much of a guard to speak of once Alastor started materializing new friends from thin air, but you know that whatever caution she may have had moments before is now completely absent. 

And worryingly, in spite of your best efforts, and the mantra you try to repeat in your head, _you cannot trust_ him, you can feel your wariness melting as the song picks up.

It’s just, you _really_ love music.

Launching a fireball at the ceiling had, admittedly, been a startling way to begin a musical number, and your general suspicion about an overall penchant of demons to burst into song is growing by the minute; but even Alastor’s continued harassment of Vaggie is having a hard time setting off any serious alarm bells when Alastor changes the color palate of the entire hotel into that of a neon carnival.

As Alastor launches into some kind of quick-stepping dance with Charlie at the top of the stairs, you realize that your own pajamas have shifted into a strange fluorescent mix of pink and teal. Distantly, you wonder if your white hair is fluorescing, or maybe has been changed altogether to hot pink or teal. Next to you, Angel tries to physically restrain Vaggie who looks like she’s silently growling, both of them are rendered in the same unnaturally vibrant colors. 

You notice that you can’t hear the string of curses you can see Vaggie mouthing, and realize that all the noise in the room seems to have been sucked out, leaving only the catchy music and Alastor’s singing. 

You open your mouth to say something, detachedly curious and not nearly as frightened as you should be, but you find that you literally _can’t_ speak, the Radio Demon has simply tuned everyone but himself out. 

Not that you have more than a moment to think about this, because with a snap of his fingers your pajamas change into some kind of straight, glittering knee length dress with bright teal sleeves. Alarmed, you spin in a circle trying to see if your corset is still covered, which it is, and you say a silent thank-you for the dress’s high back.

Vaggie breaks away from the group for a second to try and pull Charlie’s attention, pulling your focus away from your sudden change in outfit, but Alastor is right there, stepping between them and whisking Vaggie back towards your group.

“ _Inside of every demon is a lost cause!”_

Alastor croons, his host of tiny stitched-together shadows backing him up like Charlie’s two sheep. The tiny shadow creatures fascinate you, even while they are frightening to look at, and you can’t help but wonder what they are and what power is stitching them together. 

Disturbingly like his shadows, the towering demon himself seems prone to popping in and out of existence, one second behind the bar placing hats on Husker and Angel Dust, and the next leaping up behind Vaggie and donning her in a huge feathered hat and what looks like an entire dead fox before smacking her behind and disappearing again. 

Vaggie looks like she’s about to have a conniption, but Charlie is completely enthralled, grin stretching ear to ear and foot tapping to the brass backing track. You look down and find your own foot tapping along too.

_Traitor_ , an increasingly small part of your brain thinks.

Alastor seems to be on a roll, tap-dancing his way down the central carpet and kicking the trash littering the lobby floor out of his way as he goes. Niffty, also dressed in a sequined gown, skitters about behind him, cleaning up the pieces of whatever Alastor knocks aside. Watching her clean in the weird neon color palette that has consumed the lobby is somewhat disorienting, and you notice absently that the walls of the hotel too seem to be covered in those strange glowing alchemical symbols which appeared around Alastor earlier.

The realization gives you pause, and your foot stills. _Is this whole space under his control?_ You had assumed the color palate was some kind of lighting trick like Charlie had pulled during her own musical interlude, but, as Alastor opens a dark crack in the floor with a wave of his microphone and a dozen more shadows pour out, including one that seems to be a twisted copy of himself, you realize that this is no simple trick. 

It’s like he has manipulated the whole space. Sure, it’s for the sake of a musical number, which seems moistly harmless, and his summoned shadow legion seems to be doing little other than play a catchy swing, but this display of power…

A chill runs up your spine and you stiffen. Alastor’s voice seems to be projected evenly throughout the lobby, so you don’t hear him when he appears behind you, but you feel his short hair tickle your neck as he leans down and puts his head next to yours. You turn your face slightly, instincts telling you to hide your neck when you feel his rancid breath ghost across your jugular. When he sees your face, he wastes no time grabbing it and stretching your mouth into a deranged smile. You can’t help but think of that demon in the alleyway, the way his fingers tasted, rotten and putrid, when he forced them into your mouth. 

And then he’s grabbing you, twirling you around and around across the lobby so quickly your head spins. His hands are like ice where they grip your waist, and far _far_ stronger than Charlie’s grip had been, and you feel nothing but relief when he sends you spinning off towards the stairs and grabs Charlie instead

“ _They’ll spend a little time,_ ” He sings.

You come to a wobbly stop next to Niffty’s tiny form. She is literally bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement.

“ _Down at this Hazbin Ho_ —”

Something rumbles in your feet, like an earthquake, or some kind of seismic groan, and then the wall behind Alastor shatters into heat and flame. You barely register the look of bland annoyance that crosses the radio demon’s face before something big and fast and searingly hot comes screaming towards you. Or more accurately, towards the little demon, still bouncing with glee, a few feet to your right.

Before you even have time to register _what_ is flying your way, you’re dashing towards Niffty and scooping her up in her arms, your wings straining against their confinement and your legs kicking away from the wooden floor, trying to push the two of you past the approaching mass. You aren’t fast enough though, even as you move Niffty out of the way of what you realize is a giant hunk of the hotel’s exterior wall, you can’t fully avoid the blow yourself.

The stone slams into your left shoulder, spinning you off balance and splaying you flat on your back on the ground, Niffty still in your arms, on top of you.

Disoriented, it takes a moment for your vision to clear, but when you finally look up, you see the collected group staring at you with everything ranging from concern to bland amusement. You hear a muffled squeak from below your sight line, and tilt your head down to see Niffty’s single orange eye fixed on you, pupil blown wide…or at least, wid _er_. 

_Oh, I’m back in my pajamas._ You note sluggishly, willing your dizziness to clear.

You think for a second that the neon color palette is persisting, before the more muted colors of the demons turned towards you erase that thought. Niffty’s face just appears to be flushed the same neon pink as half the hotel had been moments ago. 

Angel wolf whistles, then cackles, and Niffty abruptly springs up out of your arms and dashes off to start manically cleaning the ash off the entry way.

_Ash_?

“Um,” you look from face to face, all staring at you except the Radio Demon, who appears to be absently brushing lint off of the frayed hem of his suit jacket, apparently miffed at having lost the attention of the group. That and ignoring the giant raging fire currently engulfing what little you can see of the front lawn. Sheepishly, you point behind the gathered faces.

“The hotel is on fire,” you say.

“ _Yeah_ it is,” Angel doubles over, laughing, and even Vaggie cracks a smile. Niffty’s face rivals the flames in color. Confused, you shoot Angel a raised brow and struggle to your feet. _That’s going to hurt tomorrow_ , you wince and rub your hip where it impacted the hardwood floor.

Another rumble shakes the room, and then a loud _boom_ and chunks of grass and gravel come spewing through the open wall. The vibration nearly sends you sprawling for a second time, but thankfully no new pieces of the wall come blasting off.

Static crackles up your skin, and the fine hairs on your arm stand up as though electrified. An ice cold hand lands on your bicep and a heavy arm drapes across your shoulder as the Radio Demon materializes at your side and pulls you to him. Your entire body goes rigid at the sensation. 

“Ahem,” The Radio Demon clears his throat loudly, accompanied with a screech of microphone feedback that makes everyone wince. “I believe the young lady is rather correct about the hotel,” Gesturing blithely out the ragged hole in the wall and twirling his cane. “A fire would be a rather anticlimactic end to our little liaison.”

You barely hear Charlie gasp before she is out through the hole in the wall, Vaggie and Niffty close on her tail with Husker and Angel slouching behind. Alastor doesn’t release his hold on you, even as you strain to create some distance.

Twisting in the iron grip, you try to get your arms in front of you to maybe push the demon away, but he doesn’t move, just smiles down at you with a mouth full of entirely too many razor sharp teeth. You find that you can’t read his expression, or even his aura. He has this strange combination of murderous intention and charlatanism that confuses your sense of equilibrium.

_Is he angry? Annoyed? Entertained?_

You don’t have the faintest clue, but you are quite sure that any one of those emotions on this particular demon are all bad for your health.

_And why does he keep staring at me?_ You once again get that sudden panicked rush of certainty that he is going to lean down a tear straight into your neck with those horrific teeth.

Are you just imagining it or does his smile get that much more deranged?

“This fuckwit again?” Angel’s voice drifts in through the wound in the front wall.

“What the hell do you mean _again?_ ” Vaggie’s responding screech, followed by a stream of Spanish curses, makes your gaze flick to the open wall.

“It, um, sounds like we should go out there.” You say, stumbling over the words in your suddenly very dry mouth.

“Does it now?” Alastor says absently, still giving you that creepy assessing smile, and still keeping you caged to his side. You wings are beginning to go numb, and you can feel your skin prickle where his sharp claws dig in and you start sweating.

_Please don’t break the skin, don’t draw blood, please no blood, please._

“Charlie is probably wondering where we are,” You try again, your hopes dripping off you faster than your nervous sweat. _Anything to get him away from me_.

At the mention of Charlie, Alastor seems to snap out of whatever internal dialogue he had been having, presumably about how to prepare you for dinner, and his grin becomes marginally less threatening.

“Quite right dear!” He exclaims, and gestures to the destroyed wall like he is just seeing it for the first time. “Why, just look at the state of this place. I’m sure whatever interrupted my performance must be very _entertaining_.” And then he’s gone with nothing more than a rush of static and a soft _pop_ that you can feel behind your breast bone. 

Is…Is that why he’s upset? Because his performance got interrupted? Was he just giving you that look because he was upset, or perhaps because you prolonged the interruption with your dramatic rescue of Niffty?

Just trying to get inside the Radio Demon’s head is making you feel ill. Honestly, you are just relieved that he left you to pick your way over the rubble and back to the group in peace. 

_What is that human phrase_ , you try to recall as you step over and around the scattered chunks of brick and stonemasonry, _something about a cat and a canary?_

You feel a bit like a canary, caged bird, unable to fly, sharing a home with a predator that wants nothing more than to swallow you whole. A bit too much like a canary, honestly. 

It’s horribly smokey out here, you’re practically wheezing by the time you make it to Angel’s side, but at least the fire seems to be dying down. There is very little to burn after all, just a few patches of frustrated grass and a decrepit gravel driveway. Although, looking around, the lighting is somewhat strange. You had thought the orange glow was from the fire but…

Your gaze tracks up towards the pentagram sun, but finds it blotted out entirely by some kind of large metal machine. 

Some kind of large metal _flying_ machine.

With some kind of large angry snake man leaning out of it, and apparently monologuing straight at the Radio Demon.

_Is that a zeppelin_? You think, stunned. You had seen one just once, their popularity on earth had been fleeting after all, but the shape is unmistakable.

You feel, perhaps, that your suspension of disbelief has been severely overtaxed lately. _Hell?_ That’s a manageable change in your reality. _Charlie is Lucifer’s daughter?_ Ironic, but comprehensible. _All powerful demon despot may want to consume your flesh?_ Yeah, get in line.

But a zeppelin? And one that appears to be deploying some sort of comically oversized weapon onto the front drive and readying it to fire?

That is just a bit beyond what you are able to comprehend right now. Even when Charlie takes a half step back and grabs Vaggie by the wrists, even when Angel puts out two gloved arms in front of you, you really just can’t muster the emotional capacity to care, much less process the no doubt reality tearing power about to be launched your direction.

Then Alastor snaps.

Well, you think he snaps. That seems to be his pattern before performing some gratuitous display of unfathomable power.

You don’t actually look at him until after a gaping volcanic chasm opens up in the ground and impossibly black tentacles snake out, shattering the walls of the zeppelin and ripping the still-charging weapon off of its steel mount.

You can hear the snake-demon screaming as the eldritch horrors rend his ship as you finally look sideways at Alastor. His hand is up, moving unnaturally as though manipulating invisible marionette strings. His red eyes are now completely black, interrupted by frantic static lines. Your hearing goes fuzzy, the sounds of dead air slowly taking over as grinning shadowed forms erupt from the void and circle the crumbling airship like carrion birds. 

Your whole reality trembles. It’s not just your vision, which wavers like an unseen wave briefly overtakes you, but your very being, your _soul_ even, seems to fizzle out and then turn over, like a clock passing midnight, or a radio switching to a new station. Alastor’s eyes, like blood red neon, are the only thing in focus as the hellscape shivers and melts under his power, and you feel something essential coalesce.

Then the Radio Demon makes a fist and pulls, as though yanking something essential into place, you hear the zeppelin groan once like some tortured steel animal, and then shatter in a staggering burst of energy. You can feel the group standing stunned, blown back by the frothing wind created in the blast. Alastor’s smile is venomous and excruciating. It overtakes his face, peels back like a rotting fruit to expose his pitch-black gums. It's entrancing in a terrifying way, like a snake coiling to strike.

His hair moves, rustled slightly by the aftershocks and floating up off his corpse-pale face. You catch a brief glimpse of a glowing red x emblazoned on his forehead. Just for a moment.

And then the light fades, and you realize the stygian tear in the fabric of hell has fizzled out into nothing but a shallow, blackened crater. Everyone stands frozen, and you can feel the collective gaze shift to Alastor, still standing and grinning like a hyena. No one breathes. 

“Well I’m _starved_!” The Radio Demon exclaims, spinning around to face the crowd which bodily flinches away, “who wants some jambalaya?” He cuts through the crowd like butter, and marches off towards the hotel, chattering all the way. 

You can _feel_ the tension leave the group with an ease that frankly disturbs you, and then Niffty is scurrying after Alastor’s red coattails and Angel is blowing a kiss at a disgusted Husker and Vaggie and Charlie are talking, Charlie rattling off faster than you can keep track. And you’re just left standing there, slack jawed and wondering if this kind of insane, reality breaking power, this completely wanton display of incomprehensible destructive ability, is somehow commonplace in hell. 

You’d trained for decades to face demons, gone through hours of classes and drills and techniques. You yourself had killed a stomach churning number of the dammed, and then trained legions of angels to do the same. Exterminations numbers grew higher every year you were in heaven.

And yet, somehow, you’re feeling woefully under-prepared. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back :3  
> Oooooooooh man was this chapter a blast to write. Insane Alastor is basically my muse, and that single frame of his deranged smile after he completely annihilates Sir Pentious from the pilot might be the whole reason I am writing this fanfic. Like, wow, I am making that shit my screensaver as we speak.   
> Anyone here for the lowkey Niffty romance? It occurred to me, in writing, that our angel is probably quite beautiful (if you’re into hybrid bird people, which let’s face it, this is Hazbin Hotel, we all are into pretty much whatever), and on top of that has a lot of white knight energy. While that might chafe with Vaggie and Al, and probably Angel and Husk who are like “annoying but must protecc,” I realized that Niffty, in my head, would be ALL over that. I unintentionally created her dream man, as a woman, and a fallen angel, and painstakingly plotted their romance with Alastor instead. Sorry Niffty <3 But yeah Niffty might get a few more cute crush moments, cause that one was frankly adorable.   
> Ok, well, I won’t keep you all too long. That is all for the pilot episode material, we are back in uncharted territory tomorrow with Alastor’s jambalaya and some more drama. Stay tuned everyone!
> 
> Oh, and a quick note about my upload schedule. I'm going to try and get a chapter out every day this week, and see how that feels with school and work. If I find it too stressful, I may cut it down to 2 or 3 uploads a week starting next week, I'll keep you all posted! I really really don't want to burn out on this fic because I have so many awesome ideas for where to take it so I'm trying to find a pace that's good for me <3 Thank you all again for the support


	23. A Tea Party (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! This chapter came out much longer than I expected, just over 12 pages actually, when my usual length is between 5 & 8, so I decided to split it in half! (Also sorry for the late post, I just kept adding more and more to this one), so just the fluffy half for you today.
> 
> In this chapter, you gain some new respect for Charlie...

Chapter 22: A Tea Party

Part 1

* * *

You don’t stay out on the front drive for long. Once the rest of the group has returned through the smoldering remains of the hotel’s front door, the quiet crackling of the dying fires and the occasional crunch of shifting rubble becomes audible. The vision of that eldritch horror destroying the zeppelin isn’t far from your brain, and you find that you would rather take your chances with the Radio Demon directly than to somehow run afoul of his legion of horrific shadow abominations. 

Back in the hotel, however, things are surprisingly mundane. _Sure,_ the front door has been replaced with a smoldering hole in the wall, and the carpet is littered with smoking hunks of plaster and brick (although Niffty appears to be making impressive progress at erasing that particular mess), and Angel is seated at the newly created bar, intently watching Husker sample what appears to be every individual bottle stashed below the bar top, but other than that everything is fairly normal.

Specifically, you notice a distinct lack of red tail coats and static humming. _Hadn’t he said that he was going to make something? Jambalaya?_ You don’t know what that is, exactly, but you can safely assume that it’s food, and that you do _not_ plan on eating anything served to you by that creep.

But, where is he?

You briefly consider asking Angel, but the way he is leaning over the counter towards the cat demon, tugging down on the back end of his suit-jacket and raking a manicured hand through his hair every few seconds makes you vaguely uncomfortable somehow you cant quite describe. You not sure what Angel is trying to accomplish, and Husker seems completely disinterested in whatever it is as he downs shot after shot of liquor, but you decide not to interrupt. 

That little voice in the back of your head buzzes, counting off the shots Husker is taking like individual cobblestones on the road to damnation. You wonder what exactly he was damned for. It’s not unheard of for a particularly bad drinking problem to condemn a soul, you wonder briefly if that is all that he is guilty of.

_It’s not your job, it’s not your business._ You remind yourself. On earth you had the luxury of making preliminary judgements on every should you encountered, but here in hell that habit seems both redundant and strangely invasive. Everyone is _in_ the same place, even you, thinking about the mathematical details of how they ended up here seems, well, like adding insult to injury.

That is, at least for most souls. You don’t really have to reach far to imagine what damned the Radio Demon, and however far you do reach serves only to make you increasingly disturbed. You shake your head as though to physically dislodge the presence of the thought from your mind. You should focus on the more approachable souls. And in spite of the insistence of that voice in your head, Husker seems largely harmless, more grumpy than anything else.

Sure, it was Alastor that brought him to the hotel, and they are obviously acquainted, but that shouldn’t reflect on Huskers character, at least, you don’t think it should. He seemed just as wary of the Radio Demon as anyone else.

Unlike Niffty.

You turn a few degrees and spot the little demon, alternating frenetically between sweeping up piles of ash and wiping down the gray-ish streaks they leave on the hardwood. Niffty had seemed nothing less than enthusiastic, even after Alastor has unleashed those…tentacles, or whatever they were, you get the distinct sense that she had been grinning while the rest of the hotel was standing slack-jawed.

As if sensing your eyes on her, Niffty straightens for a moment and makes eye contact. Instantly, her face flames and she whips around to dust the vase behind her. The vase is taller than she is, and already gleaming in all of its lacquered eyeballs, not a spot of dirt in sight, but she starts frantically cleaning it anyway.

You raise an eyebrow at her back, watching her pink poodle skirt whip back and forth with the speed of her motions. You don’t have a read on the strange little demon, but even if she responded to every frightening outburst Alastor had made today with applause, you doubt you would be able to think of her as anything but harmless. 

Then again she had practically thrown you across the room.

You shrug to yourself and decide to find Charlie. Alastor had only brought two demons with him, but that was two too many for your overtired brain. You decide to reserve judgement for tomorrow at least

Maybe Charlie can give you another one of those granola bars and you can go straight to bed.

…

It doesn’t take you long to find Charlie. She and Vaggie appear to have drug one of the crates away from the wall and pushed it up against their folding table to create a makeshift dining table, you assume. Although the two of them don’t appear to be preparing to eat anytime soon. You wince as you move into earshot.

“—and the fireplace, did you see how good the skeleton’s on the wall look with the new rug? Everyone is going to be really impressed, and I think we can do game nights now that the fire works! And if we put up those other portraits of my mom I really think—”

“Charlie, I’m not sure that—” Vaggie tries to jump in.

“And with a welcome desk too? We should throw a big party, a ball or something. We could clean out the ballroom and send out invitations, Al could announce it on his radio show—” Charlie shows no signs of slowing down.

“I don’t think that’s the kind of attention that we should—”

“Just think Vaggie, if we could redeem the _Radio Demon_ , everyone would take us seriously! We thought that Angel would be a good way to get the word out, just think what we can accomplish with an _Overlord_ backing us!” Charlie is all but literally glowing, waving her hands animatedly and beaming at Vaggie.

Vaggie opens her mouth to protest, but seems to deflate under Charlie’s unstoppable enthusiasm, and instead sighs and puts her hand on the other girl’s arm.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful okay?” She says.

“Trust me! I have a great feeling about this” Charlie’s grin doesn’t waver as she grips the hand on hers, but Vaggie seems far from convinced. 

Charlie catches sight of you first, where you linger near one of the decorative columns in the lobby, unwilling to interrupt their conversation, and waves you over frantically. 

“Oh my _gosh_ ,” she gushes as you pull out a chair and sit across from her, “I’m so _excited_ for tomorrow!” Charlie looks at your with round yellow eyes, and you wonder if you are supposed to know what is happening tomorrow.

“Um, tomorrow?” you say uncertainly, looking sideways towards Vaggie, who pointedly ignores you.

“YES!” Charlie nearly yells, leaning out over the table to pull you into a strained hug, “It’s the first day of everyone working here! Your first day and Al, and also Niffty and Husk! The first day of the Happy Hotel up and running with a full staff!”

You’re not at all surprised that Charlie has come up with nicknames for two of the three new demons who appeared in her lobby mere hours ago, but you do find her enthusiasm somewhat contagious. You had almost forgotten your relief at finding your position in the hotel secure, and Charlie’s childlike joy at having a new team together to work on her dream rekindles your motivation to help her.

_I owe her everything_ you remind yourself, as you pat her awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Oh, yeah, I’m excited too.” You try to muster some genuine emotion for your words, but Charlie seems to have enough for both of you as she rocks in seat, nearly tipping it over backwards and forcing Vaggie to catch her chair with one hand. 

“Now I know it’s just Angel today, but I just know that soon we’ll have _tons_ of guests, so I’m going to need your help coming up with all sorts of rehabilitation programs! I’m counting on your expertise!” Charlie throws you two eager thumbs up, her grin nearly splitting her face in two.

You find the razor sharp teeth to be far less intimidating in her rosy-cheeked face than in Alastor’s cold gray one, in fact her fangs are even starting to grow on you. You think she looks a bit like a kitten, cute and playful but slightly feral.

You can’t help but smile back.

“So what do you think about Al?” Charlie asks, apropos of nothing. The question comes so far out of left field it takes you a few moments to understand what she is even asking, the pause making her add, “Vaggie doesn’t trust him but I’m sure you agree with me.”

_Agree with her?_ You try to figure out what answer Charlie is anticipating from you. Surely she doesn’t _trust_ the Radio Demon? His whole aura is unsettling, and that display of power earlier…

But then again, Charlie is on a crusade in the most real sense, trying to save souls already committed to eternal damnation. It’s not inconceivable for her to insist on seeing good, redeemable qualities, even in that terrifying figure.

Charlie looks at you with an unreadably happy expression. _What does she want me to say?_ You don’t know if you’re expected to caution or encourage her, you aren’t even sure what she herself is thinking, but you don’t want to say the wrong thing.

“Um, well, it’s too soon to make judgements...”You trail off, hoping your answer is vague enough not to give away your confusion. Charlie leans in as if fascinated.

“Oh, yeah, I bet you guys take forever on the judgements in heaven, I totally forgot about that,” She tries to look more serious, and you try to resist the urge to tell her that most judgements are just simple math and really take no time at all. “Buuuuuuut, that means you agree that he can change right? You think there’s a possibility, that’s why you don’t want to say?” Charlie leans forward conspiratorially in a way you find disarmingly adorable.

_Wait,_ she wants to… _change_ the Radio Demon? It takes you a moment of mental acrobatics to reorder the power dynamic you had formed in your brain as you realize that Charlie is thinking of Alastor not as a business partner, but as a _patron_.

Here you thought she had just been swept away by his magic tricks and song-and-dance routine, but here is something significantly more complex than that. Charlie literally looked into the face of a demon that made you yourself want to run for cover, and decided to try and redeem him. 

Charlie wasn’t kidding when she promised redemption, and she applied her ideals so evenly that she took on one of the most feared demons in hell, if Vaggie is to be believed, and saw only someone in need of her help.

The sheer charity of that blows you away, and also thoroughly terrifies you. The impossibility of convincing the thrones, much less Michael, that a soul as corrupted as Alastor’s is redeemed, one so drenched in sin you yourself could feel it all of the way outside the building, notwithstanding, you have no idea where you would begin such a task, if you even _could_. You realize Charlie’s commitment to her project runs a good deal deeper than you had thought, and that she is a fair bit more intrepid than you gave her credit for.

_Sure,_ Charlie may be insane for inviting that particular demon through her doors, but you find yourself impressed at her consistency, and her attitude. You feel a newfound respect for Charlie blossoming in you.

“Um, is that a yes?” Charlie looks at you quizzically, and you realize that you were staring. 

You think for a moment, and decide to be honest with Charlie. You feel like you are constantly underestimating her, and decide that you should at least be as level as you can be.

“Honestly, Charlie, I don’t know. It’s never been done, nothing even close to this has ever even been attempted. If you’re asking my personal opinion,” you shrug noncommittally and try to be gentle in your wording, “I have…strong doubts. But I’m willing to help any way that I can.”

To your horror, you see tears pooling in Charlie’s big yellow eyes.

“Oh, no I—I didn’t mean that—” You stutter, before Charlie leaps bodily over the table and tackles you out of your chair and into a hug.

You wheeze in her grip, trying to get a breath in through the combined restrictions of your corset and her arms latched around your chest. 

“Thank you so much!” Charlie half-squeals half-sobs into your shirt. That is, her own shirt, which you are wearing.

“I knew you would understand, I just have to try!” You can barely make out her words through her sniffing and your own labored breathing, but you manage to smile weakly

Vaggie looks at the two of you over the table with a defeated smile on her face. You make eye contact with her, and have a distinct moment of comradery. You get the sense that she and you both are fighting a losing battle against the flood tide that is Charlie, but that neither of you much mind drowning in her insane quest. 

Charlie is a force to be reckoned with, but she really just sucks the reckoning right out of you. 

That and all the air in your lungs.

“Charlie,” you wheeze, “can’t breathe.”

“Huh?” Charlie’s watery eyes look up from your chest and see your struggling face, “oh, sorry.” She up and drags you with her, setting you back on your feet where you work to catch your breath as she pats your back sympathetically.

You hear Vaggie huff out a laugh

“You’re going to knock someone out one of these days, and I sincerely hope it’s her, not me”

Carlie puts a hand on her hip, which is about all of her you can see from your doubled over position.

“What, I don’t knock you out already?”

There is a beat of meaningful silence, then it’s Vaggie’s turn to wheeze. Charlie bursts into a fit of giggles above you and returns to her seat. When you finally straighten, you see pale pink blush on Vaggie’s mottled gray skin, and have the impression that you missed some crucial aspect of this conversation.

“Anyways,” you cough self-consciously, “where is, um, Al.” You test out Charlie’s nickname, and it feels like courting danger. You look over your shoulder involuntarily, half expecting to see a pair of red eyes staring at you from some darkened corner, promising blood for your disrespect of their namesake. 

Thankfully, no such eyes are in sight, and you turn back to the table.

“Oh, like he said, he’s making Jambalaya.” Charlie waves a hand vaguely in the air. When you just stare at her she elaborates. “He’s cooking, in the kitchen.”

“There’s a kitchen?” you ask, genuinely confused. As far as you understood it, human’s and by extension demons keep their food in kitchens. The only food you have seen thus far is that derelict refrigerator which you had propped up in the corner of the lobby. Don’t those usually go _in_ kitchens?

Then again Angel had been eating cereal this morning. He had walked off somewhere next to the stairs to put it away…

You turn in your chair and look over your shoulder to the other side of the stairs, and notice a metal door with a single round window. _Is that the kitchen_.

There is so much about food you don’t know, you find the concept of a whole room for food preparation fascinating in an unfamiliar way.

_Or maybe I’m just hungry_ , you decide, when your stomach makes that awful growling noise again. 

Charlie laughs at you good-naturedly.

“You sound hungry, but he said it would take a while. I don’t think there’s much else to eat in here anyway,” Charlie glances over to Vaggie and shrugs, “honestly I’m just glad we don’t have to get takeout again.”

…

Waiting isn’t so bad, at first.

For a while, you just sit and listen to Charlie and Vaggie talk, not really listening to the substance of the conversation, but nodding politely when they looked your way. Hunger is a new sensation, but you find it fairly easy to ignore. It’s persistent discomfort, but not real pain, and while unpleasant it isn’t beyond ignoring.

But then you start _smelling_ the food.

Whatever it is that Alastor is cooking, _Jambalaya_ , whatever that is, it smells _incredible._

Admittedly, your palate is limited, and you never paid much if any attention to foods on earth as they didn’t interest you. The only points of comparison you have are the take-out Charlie brough you a few days ago, and the granola bars you scarfed down during the extermination.

This smells _nothing_ like either of those. The smell is rich, velvety, with a hint of something hot that tickles the back of your nose and sets your mouth watering. Even the seafood smell is intoxicating, blessedly distinct from the rotting fish smell from the alley, and somehow salty and heavy in a way you can’t describe. 

When you catch the first whiff, you almost walk straight into the kitchen before Husker of all people shouts a dispassionate warning from across the room.

“Don’t go in there, trust me,” his voice is like gravel, but his tone is serious. “he doesn’t ‘like to be disturbed’ when he’s cooking.”

You glance back at the cat demon, whose gray ears are pressed flat back against his head, and then at the kitchen door where that amazing smell is still lingering. 

“I mean, do whatcha want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when he goes apeshit. Fucker is territorial about his kitchen” Husker shrugs, one long feathery eyebrow twitching.

You don’t know what “apeshit” entails, but decide that you don’t want to find out. Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, you make your way, with difficulty, back to your seat. 

From there it only takes, at most, twenty minutes for Alastor to emerge from the kitchen, but every second of that is near agony. The smell just keeps getting stronger, and more complex, you have to hold your hands across your mouth to stop yourself from actively drooling on the table.

Charlie looks sympathetic, while Vaggie mutters something about “way too obvious,” but you find it impossible to think of anything _other_ than the growing cacophony of smells. You half hoped you would get used to it, like a strong perfume, and stop smelling it after a while, but your hopes are in vain.

You wonder if this is kind of demonic torture employed especially by the Radio Demon.

You wonder if the Thrones condemned you to a fate of eating food specifically to inflict this pain.

You wonder if Michael is mocking you now, his pealing melodic laughter raining down on hell like ash.

You wonder if this is how the demons in Wonderland felt when they smelled your blood.

You find you don’t care, as long as you can _eat_ nothing matters.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long notes will be at the end of tomorrow's chapter, since they are continuous. Tomorrow's post should be in the early evening PST, since I only have some light editing to do ^_^. I'm opting to split this up to keep my writing pace consistent, since I usually hammer out most of the next day's chapter the previous night and edit the day of, and given how long this one is it sort of threw that off lol. Let me know if this splitting up is ok, or if you would prefer me to post whole longer chapters and then skip the next day's post instead, either works for me :)   
> See you all tomorrow.


	24. A Tea Party (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you try something new and get a lesson in table manners...

Chapter 22: A Tea Party

Part 2

* * *

And then finally, _finally_ , Alastor emerges from the kitchen. His appearance is so strange that, even in your half-crazed state, it gives you a moment of pause. The towering demon has removed his coat, and rolled his red sleeves up to the elbow, and his top button undone. His unruly red hair is pulled back and tied, tipped faintly in black like his bangs. You realize that what you had thought were driving gloves are actually a _part_ of his skin, extending partway up his forearm in soot-gray tendrils, infecting like the leather itself is growing into his flesh. The effect is disconcerting, and strangely invasive. You find yourself wondering if the black sections are leather at all, or a living part of his flesh. 

None of that is what really stops you though, as strange as it all may be. That honor goes to the bright pink apron tied around the Radio Demon’s neck. You can only assume the apron is Charlie’s, given the smiling embroidered strawberry on the front and the lacy white fringe. That, and it is clearly too small for the demons lithe but towering form. 

He looks, you think for one baffling moment, harmless, as he wipes his dusky hands on a bright yellow towel he has neatly folded in the front pocket of the apron. 

_Harmless_.

Then he looks up and you see that razor-edged smile, and that thought evaporates from your mind. 

“Darling,” Alastor says, looking at Charlie, “where shall I serve dinner?”

Charlie grins at him and gestures to the folding table, pushed unevenly against the heavy wooden crate as a makeshift extension. She seems proud of her ingenuity. 

Alastor’s smile gets, you think, a bit more tight, before he bursts into derisive laughter.

“Oh, Darling, no that won’t do at all. I have made us a _feast_ , one fit for a _princess_ , we need a venue to match, of course.” Alastor tilts his head just a fraction too far to be natural and snaps his gloved…not gloved…you aren’t sure about the semantics, but with a snap of his fingers the makeshift setting disappears, and in its place is a sprawling dark wood banquet table. The ground around the table is cleared instantly, and under your feet a plush dark red rug appears. 

You groan internally and flex your talons, already feeling them snagging at the carpet. You are not _meant_ for walking on carpet, you are fast learning in this place.

You watch Alastor make a shallow bow, and head back through the kitchen door with a flourish. You only get a half-second glimpse, but you almost think you see something fluffy at his back, red and black like his hair.

_A tail?_ You think immediately, before shaking the idea off. 

It doesn’t seem at all fitting, and besides you have much more _important_ things to worry about. Namely that delicious food that you can _still smell_ but aren’t yet _eating_ which is causing your body to try and digest _itself_ either in desperation or protest. 

Alastor reappears a moment later, back in his previous outfit, hair let down, and leading a wooden cart behind him, on which is an absolutely towering pot letting off divine smelling steam.

Almost without thinking, you find yourself drifting forward towards the food, until Alastor stops you with the blunt end of his microphone at your throat. The sensation is stomach-churning, like the sensory equivalent of an electrical shortage, and you jump back from where the microphone touched the bare skin of your neck. You have another brief surge of double vision, where the microphone seems to flicker and shift between an inanimate object and a thousand individual living things, and a wave of static overtakes you. 

You look up at the Radio Demon, eyes wide, who is smiling at you, head cocked.

“Sit.” Is all he says, flicking the microphone curtly towards the table.

You get the sense that Husker was _very_ right to warn you about going into the kitchen, and make a mental not to thank him as you backpedal until you hit the heavy wooden table and find a seat next to Charlie. 

With another wave of his microphone, place settings appear, six grouped near the middle and a single set on the far end of the table, away from the others. Alastor then directs the food to _serve itself_ , which would have considered impressive if you weren’t so desperately hungry. 

With a clap of his hands, the Radio Demon announces that dinner is served, and takes a seat at the end of the table, away from everyone else, while Angel, Husker, and Niffty make their way over. 

You’re practically clawing at the wood, the food floating just out of reach, waiting for everyone to be seated. Your gaze is all but nailed to the steaming dish, but every time you make even the smallest motion towards it, a wave of disorienting static prickles up your skin and behind your eyes. Gritting your teeth, you glance sidelong at the rest of the table, timing your attack for the second Angel dramatically throws himself into his seat.

Like a coiled spring, you lurch forward and swipe the bowl out of the air. The ensuing wave of static makes your vision fuzz at the edges and skin roil, but you are far too hungry to be intimidated by that red menace. 

Single minded, you pull the bowl to you and tip the contents into your mouth. 

You aren’t sure, but you think the flavor may short out your brain and reboot it. For a moment the only thing you can think about is the taste, rich and savory and yet somehow delicate. And the texture, it’s completely unlike the few other things you have tasted, and it’s intoxicating.

In your desperate attempt to shovel the food into your mouth as quickly as possible, you find yourself choking again and reaching for your water, guzzling it and leaving a greasy smear on the glass before returning doggedly to your bowl.

Angel makes a gagging noise across from you, and you look up briefly from your mission to see the entire table staring at you. You glance to your left and see Charlie looking strangely embarrassed. You wipe your mouth with the back of one hand and then run your tongue along the smear, not wanting to waste any of the food.

“Um,” Charlie starts.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Vaggie sighs, reaching over Charlie and grabbing the utensil near your hand and holding it out to you. “Use a spoon or something, Christ.”

You look from the utensil to her, ignore the mental tally of _blasphemy,_ and recall that you are supposed to be using tools to eat. _That would explain the strange looks_. 

“Thanks,” you say, taking the spoon, and then using it to expedite your shoveling of food down your throat. 

“I uh, don’t think ya got through to her” Angel says, sounding about to laugh.

You don’t pay much heed to the conversation, figuring that your use of the spoon will have calmed everyone’s nerves, and focus instead on the amazing flavor you are experiencing.

Although, it’s not all you’re experiencing, you realize.

In the back of your throat, growing tingle starts, a faint bristling sensation, like pinpricks or a singe of a very small flame in your mouth. You pause in your single-minded attack on your meal and try to pin down this sensation.

You recall the strange heat you had detected in the smell of the cooking meal. This is similar, but it’s like the taste equivalent, an increasingly vicious burning in the back of your throat. 

You turn to Charlie in surprise, not bothering to clean your face this time.

“It’s hot!” You say, looking between the food and her as though she can see into your mouth and explain what’s happening.

Charlie raises an eyebrow and looks around the table as though for help before returning her gaze to you. 

“Well, yeah, it just came off the stove, or oven, or whatever?” She sounds uncertain.

“No no, not temperature hot, it’s more like…Like it _tastes_ hot” You try to explain, tentatively licking the smudged food off of your lip as the sensation grows. You wonder if the food is _supposed_ to do that, you wonder, suddenly, if this is some kind of reaction to the demon food, or worse yet, poison.

_The Radio Demon cooked this_ , you remember in a flash, _how could you be stupid enough to actually eat it?_

You look at Charlie with a growing panic, starting to pant, and working up a sweat. You can feel your pale face flushing, trying to cool off your blistering tongue.

Vaggie’s face appears over Charlie’s shoulder, expression similarly incredulous.

“You mean, it’s spicy?” She asks.

Your mental dictionary translates the word as best it can, but you aren’t sure. You’ve never eaten anything _spicy_ , is it supposed to burn like this?

“I don’t know, it feels like my mouth’s on fire. Is that bad?” you ask. Eyes darting between Vaggie and Charlie, both wearing expressions of disbelief.

Then, all at once, Vaggie erupts into laughter.

“ _Dios mío_ ,” she wheezes, wiping tears from her eyes, “the _gringa_ has never had spicy food before.” You don’t think you’ve ever seen Vaggie laugh like this, and you’re considering asking Charlie if she’s OK when Angel starts laughing as well.

“You seriously ain’t never eaten anything spicy before toots?” Angel asks, gesturing to you with a fork that has a piece of shrimp speared on the end of it. “Well, shit, with how much you just inhaled, you’re in for a nasty shock” Angel giggles and pops the shrimp into his mouth.

Lost, you look back to Charlie for reassurance.

“Is it supposed to hurt?” You ask, half convinced that you are going to combust into literal flames from some kind of demonic fire magic.

Charlie shrugs sheepishly, “Uh, yeah, that’s what spicy food is. It’s like…food that hurts?” You can’t tell if Charlie is struggling to describe the taste or struggling with the realization that “spicy” is apparently just the flavor of pain, but either way she doesn’t seem concerned. 

You look back down at your still heaping plate of food, and track a droplet of bright red sauce as it makes its way down the side of your bowl. _If it’s not killing me,_ you think, and feel your stomach twitch, still hungry.

You swipe a finger up the side of the bowl and pop it into your mouth, thoughtfully tasting the new sparks it sets off across your tongue. You didn’t really notice before, but the _spice_ or whatever it is seems to alter the flavor of the food, bringing out the warmer, heavier tones near the back of your tongue as the heat fades. It hurts, sure, and you can tell that the flush on your face isn’t going away, but you can’t deny that it is delicious, and that it adds something…undefinable.

Oddly, you find that you sort of enjoy the controlled pain, like flirting with danger, or something equivalent.

You smile and sweep the plate up in both hands again, spoon at the ready.

“I like it!” You declare, and make a move to start eating again.

“Woah woah woah wait.” Charlie’s black-nailed hand pushing the bowl down and away from your face. You unconsciously follow the motion with your head before looking back at her, spoon still raised.

“What?” You ask.

Vaggie answers, “ _What_ , what? That’s it? You taste hot food for the first time and that’s it?” She looks, disappointed?

“Yeah, no tears, no begging for milk? No screaming? This shit is pretty damn hot” Angel says, looking equally disappointed, a light pink flush dusting his own face.

You think for a moment. Had they expected a…more dramatic reaction? Sure, the spice hurts, but not _that_ badly. You have a puncture wound in your stomach from a holy weapon, surely Angel and Vaggie haven’t _forgotten_ that.

“I have a high heat tolerance,” You shrug, thinking of Holy fire and peeling, blistering skin. 

“Well that’s fuckin’ lame.” Angel sighs fork hanging out of the side of his mouth like an extended frown.

“Tell me about it.” Vaggie mutters, looking at her food as though daring it to try something, although _what_ exactly, you aren’t sure.

“Indeed.” A humming voice comes from your left, and you become suddenly, painfully aware of a growing wall of static that has been seeping towards you from that end of the table. Admittedly (stupidly), you had forgotten about the Radio Demon.

You turn slowly, but before you even look at Alastor you can feel that he’s mad. Really mad. You wonder if you can make a break for the stairs before he can catch you, if it’s even _you_ he’s mad at.

The Radio Demon looks murderous. His smile is tight, and his hands are folded above his untouched plate of food as he stares you down. _Did he want a different reaction too?_ You think, floundering to understand his sudden temper. 

“Now, darling,” he leans forward threateningly and you have to fight with your spine to not lean back in response, “would you mind explaining yourself and that little,” he sucks in a breath though his uncompromising smile, “display?”

“Display?” Your voice comes out distinctly more like a squeak than you had hoped.

“Al—” Charlie starts from behind you, her hand landing on your shoulder, but he continues.

“Yes, that _display_ of an absolute lack of _manners_.” His eyes narrow, but his smile doesn’t change. _He is so angry_ , you think, trying not to cower, trying to hold his gaze. _Why is he so angry?_

“A _display_ which made an absolute _mockery_ of my cooking” You are starting to see those symbols again, as they seep through into your reality, and you blanch. _Manners?_ As in etiquette? Have you overstepped some boundary somewhere, one you didn’t even know to look for?

_This is it,_ you think, _killed at Charlie’s dinner table by an enraged Radio Demon over cultural differences_.

“Al,” Charlie tries again, firmer this time, and the miasma surrounding the red demon vanishes abruptly as he turns to her, smile brightening. 

“I don’t think she’s ever eaten—” Charlie starts, and you stiffen immediately, looking at her with wide eyes, silently urging her _not_ to give away your damning inexperience with food any more than you yourself already have .

“Um, I don’t think—” Charlie stalls and then tries again, gaze darting between you and Alastor, “I don’t think she’s ever had food this excellent before, your cooking really is wonderful Al”

You breathe a sigh of relief through your nose and struggle to swallow our anxiety. 

“Well, of course, as I said this is my mother’s recipe and she was quite the star in the kitchen,” Alastor preens under Charlie’s flattery, and you think for a moment you have dodged a bullet before he continues, “But even that is no excuse to eat like a barnyard animal.”

He fixes you with a threatening smile, and you shrink, wanting to leave but also unwilling to sacrifice your remaining portion of food, even on pain of death.

_Barnyard animal?_

“Sit up.” He barks, and you do almost without question. His tone is oddly military in a way that taps right into your training, and you find yourself obeying before you can even process the commands themselves. “Napkin in your lap, elbows off the table,” he rattles off instructions rapid-fire, “Chew before you swallow, set down your silverware before you reach for your drink.” As he continues, everyone else appears to lose interest. You wonder if you should be taking notes.

At some point, while he is explaining to you that you should always move your spoon towards you rather than away when using it, Angel finishes his meal and pushes his chair back, blowing a kiss to an annoyed Husker and waving to you before quietly making his way upstairs.

“Pay attention sweetheart, I don’t _like_ being ignored,” Your head snaps back to Alastor, whose eyes are dangerous, but after a beat he continues. 

By the time he finishes explaining the differences between a salad fork and a dinner fork, everyone but Charlie has left the table, and you haven’t taken a single bite since this lecture started. Your spine is starting to hurt from the way Alastor insists that you sit, and your wings are fully numb from holding perfectly still under your corset. 

“Now, my dear, no one will take you seriously if you don’t behave with some _manners_. If you eat like a slob you will be treated as one. I expect that we won’t need to have this discussion twice?” He looks at you with that unwavering smile, and all you can do is nod dumbly.

“Marvelous. Now, do enjoy your meal.” He pushes his chair back and picks up his empty plate from the table, before strutting purposefully off to the kitchen, swinging the door shut dramatically behind him. _When did he even have time to eat that?_ You wonder numbly, before turning to Charlie, and then to your plate of cold Jambalaya.

“On the bright side,” Charlie starts hesitantly, “at least he has good manners.”

You look back at Charlie, who scratches the back of her head awkwardly before lapsing into silence, and finally picking up her plate and walking off for the kitchen. 

This day has been _exceptionally_ long, even without the Radio Demon you were exhausted. Now, exhausted is an understatement.

You add “table manners” to the growing list of long and involved customs apparently common place among humans and demons alike, and take a moment to silently bemoan your fate. 

To your great annoyance, the jambalaya is delicious, even cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished! I hope you all enjoyed that chapter. For the record, I am a total lightweight when it comes to spicy food, so our MC having a tolerance for spice is kind of just wish fulfillment for me lol.   
>  Things are pretty fluffy for now, but my love for action has not died! I have a few action scenes planned for the rest of part 2, and even some forays out of the hotel and into the big bad hellscape, so look forward to that :) Oh, and I also have some very fun stuff with the hotel itself that I think you all will like, and as always thoughts and comments are appreciated! I love reading what you guys think, what you predict will happen, or anything you might want to see more of in the story (Like Niffty crushing for the MC).   
>  Oh, and head-canon notes. I’ve seen fanart/speculation that Al’s gloves are actually part of his arms and for whatever reason I find that REALLY cool and creepy. Additionally, I’ve seen people say that Al hides his tail (it’s all over the Hunicasts if you watch/listen to those at all) because it’s somewhat embarrassing, but I find that sort of difficult to write in Al. For me, I think he doesn’t like to draw attention to his tail, or any other weird physical aspects of his deer body, but if the guy can walk around with big fluffy ears and cute little horns I imagine that he is probably not insecure about his floofy tail. I dunno, it will probably come up again later, and maybe I’ll find a way to write a more shy Al, but for now, I don’t think he’s very worried about people seeing the tail. 
> 
> Quick translation notes which I inconsistently remember to provide  
> Dios mío = literally “my god”   
> Gringa = if you haven’t heard this word before, it’s basically slang for a non-latino/a person, more specifically white people, but also generally anyone who is unfamiliar with Hispanic culture, can’t speak the language, etc. As far as I know it’s a pretty good-natured jab, but maybe that’s just what my Hispanic friends tell me *shrug*   
>  Hope you all enjoyed this (two-part) chapter, stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment!   
>  Also I really want some Jambalaya :(   
> 


	25. A Writing Desk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update 10/9: Hi guys, next chapter isn't done, so no post today, right now I'm planning on a longer update for Monday :)
> 
> In this chapter, you are assigned to a small church in France, and the world is changing...

Chapter 23: A Writing Desk

* * *

You stand behind the pulpit, towering over the preacher in spite of his raised position. Sitting, you are taller than most mortals. Standing, you can see over this man’s shoulders, and into the faces of the crowd in front of him, upturned and listening with rapt attention. His sermon is close to its end, and his particular style tends to build to a climactic peak just before he dismisses the crowd. 

You’ve taken to standing behind the preachers. You’re not sure when you started to do it, perhaps on your second reassignment after the **priest** , perhaps later. You feel stronger, behind them. You feel as though you are in control, supervising their actions. You _need_ to at least supervise, if you can’t intercede.

It’s not recommended, in fact, it is strongly discouraged to interfere directly with the mortals, but making your presence more… _subtly_ known: a slight breeze through the expensive silk tails of a priests gown, the heavy weight of your hand on their shoulder, a set of yellow eyes just in their peripheral vision. The method isn’t perfect, but you find that fear, or the feeling of being watched, is a powerful deterrent. More than one priest has stuttered in the face of sin, feeling your eyes. They are small victories, but they matter to you.

So now you stand behind the priests, whenever you can, _especially_ during sermons. You like to see the faces of the congregation, to feel the emotions of the priest as he speaks, to know his intentions, his sincerity, or his insincerity. You daydream that you can guide his hand better this way.

Now, it has become a habit.

This priest, you like. He is an older man, thin grey hair balding, but his arms are strong, and he gestures enthusiastically with them when he preaches. He speaks of the glory of god, the beauty of creation. His sermons are inspiring, and through his upraised hands you can see the faces of the congregation, enraptured. 

He is a compelling speaker, his words are beautiful, evocative. You find French to be a good language for preaching. Latin had always seemed too, restrictive. Latin didn’t evolve, because the humans no longer spoke it, and so it was crippled, destined never to change. Its child languages on the other hand, they move and flow and create. French, you think, is artistry, and your priest is a talented artist. 

Michael prefers Latin, so your training had said. 

But, things are changing, you know. Humans are funny in that way, they constantly push against their world, testing its limits, even rewriting them, when they can. 

This priest for example; he was not always such. You can see the weight of his layman’s sins when you look into his soul. A marriage, infidelity, copious amounts of wine. Once was the time when you could not become a priest with these things in your past. That time has come and gone. You find that you don’t miss it, this man’s evangelism is _earned_ his belief is _founded_ in experience, it makes his influence more genuine, you think at least. 

His soul, however, is balanced on a fine edge, virtue and sin wrestling for dominance.

He enjoys drinking, still. It doesn’t help his situation. 

You sigh, adjusting your robe where it hangs loose around your torso. You wish he wouldn’t drink, but you know that you cannot make him stop. You wish that you could, whisper to him in his sleep, guide his hand with your own. Every poor choice he makes, although there are few, hurts you. You long to step in. His soul is such a delicate thing, so close to damnation, and for so little.

But you can’t.

A _presence_ is one thing. The energy expended to appear over a sinner’s shoulder as a heavy _something_ , is very little, so little that the Thrones do not notice. The energy to physically manifest, to speak directly to a human, that is much greater, and requires special authorization. 

You entertained the idea of applying for a permit to manifest, a few decades ago, but you have long since let that dream go. Saints, martyrs, and prophets _only_. This preacher is no prophet, merely a good man unable to resist a thousand tiny sins. 

A man beyond your reach. 

You look past the purple silk of his vestments and allow your eyes to drift across the crowd. This congregation is rural, but the expanding human population is beginning to change that. This country is labile. Although you were just assigned, you can feel the buried resentment, your briefing had included some small inclusion about local politics, upheaval and revolution, a new leader. Nothing of any lasting potency, the documents had said, just a blip, a brief spike in damnations. 

But something else, something more _insidious_ was taking place here. You have heard rumblings, frustrations among other angels, with what little time you spend in heaven proper these days, frustrations about the new sins cropping up in ever-expanding cities. Your village is no city, but wealth has moved through it nonetheless, and you have begun to notice a certain _gap._

A woman in the front pew sits with her hands folded in her lap, next to her small family. Her hair is elaborately curled and pinned, her dress is printed silk over a lace and linen petticoat. You can practically smell her from where you stand, floral and alkaline, some kind of scented chalk powder. Three rows behind her, another woman sits, with a family that should be very much the same. Her cotton dress is uncorseted, just a simple print over a solid blue skirt. Her hair is pinned, as well, but uncurled. Your sharp eyes pick out the dirt under her fingernails. 

Inequality has always plagued you with a certain anxiety, something embedded under your skin that you can’t quite find and yank out. The crippled, the orphaned, the sick, all of them flake away from piety, peeled back by a force that you cannot combat, something fundamental, something you can’t see or define but that drags them back towards the pit of sin. But now, you can see that inequality spreading, festering like a gangrenous wound. 

And now that inequality seems...mundane, as though you should grow used to its intrusion. 

The tithe bowl is passed around, the woman in the front row gives each of her children a silver coin to drop in the bowl. They clink against the polished brass. You resent the coins, thinking that things were so much simpler before money became widespread. 

The woman closer to the back leaves with her family after the sermon concludes, putting nothing in the bowl. You know that her tithe will not be paid until fall, and not with money. Her family are farmers, their tithe is taken directly from their crops. 

_The more frequent the tithe, the better for the soul_. That was the evolving platform. The money in the bowl was _worth something_ , something intangible.

You sigh, and drift out the door with the dispersing congregation, an invisible, looming presence in the human crowd. You suppose you should be thankful for church reform. You’ve heard stories that a few centuries ago, there were ministerial issues with the expanding definition of indulgences. Classically indulgences were only given for sinners for acts of penance, but at some point the human orthodoxy began to conflate the indulgence and the tithe, and for several decades indulgences could be purchased. The resulting ecclesiastical nightmare caused many headaches for the acting Thrones, and the backup of trials was, so they say, enormous. 

You weren’t there when that happened of course, that was at least three centuries before your own birth, but you’ve heard the stories enough times, and many older angels remember the fallout all too clearly. The solution seems simple enough to you, although it is far afield of the mandates against interference. 

_But,_ you think, _we wouldn’t have these issues if we didn’t allow the humans money_.

It seems like a simple fix, it could even be done with a few prophets, one or two commandments. You think many souls would be protected if this simple evil could just be excised. _Isn’t that our job, as angels? To punish evil_. 

You don’t know why the administration doesn’t consider taking a more _active_ approach.

You blink at the sudden field in front of you, covered in knee high grass, a monochrome light green. You search for the word, and come up with _wheat_. You realize you have followed the second woman home.

You told yourself that you would stop _doing_ this. You know that spending time with the humans in their private spaces just endears them to you, just makes your sin reports that much tougher to hand in, tempts you to try and fake your numbers, pardon someone you know you cannot. The Thrones always re-run the calculations in the end anyways, they always find you out. _Justice_ is always served.

You know that you can’t _do_ anything for these people, save ensure that the sermons they attend are accurate. 

_Earth is a mortal’s chance to prove themselves worthy. All mortals are born with the same potential for good and evil, they must choose the right path to ascend. All mortals have an equal chance._

This is basic training, _very_ basic training, 9th choir even. You know that these mortals need to prove themselves, and you know that watching causes you nothing but guilt and worry.

You had promised yourself that you would stay away, after your reprimand last quarter for your false reporting. _You had promised_.

The sound of a door banging shut shocks you from your reverie, as two children dart past you. The one in front, slightly taller, a boy, you think, zig zags around your legs, naturally avoiding your unseeable presence. 

He shouts back to the other child, trailing behind. 

“ _Allons-y Alix, il fermera bientôt!”_

The smaller boy gasps, trying to keep up on his shorter legs.

You had promised yourself you wouldn’t.

You know that this will only cause you problems.

The wind snakes through the tall grass, lifting the younger boys straw blonde hair and exposing his cherubic face, scrunched in concentration as he runs, tugging at the loose sleeve of his tunic.

 _“Attends-moi, Gabriel!”_ he calls, waving one pale hand in the air as his brother crests a hill and urges him forward. “ _Attends-moi!”_

He trips once, the path is rutted and uneven, and the divots are slick with mud, and you shoot out a hand as though to catch him, as though you even could.

He doesn’t see you, of course, he only touches the ground with his hands before scrambling back to his feet. You watch the pale cotton of his shift wave in the breeze, and then disappear over the hill after his brother. 

Your wings twitch in frustration, casting a long shadow on the ground where they blot out the sunlight. To any passing human, the shadow would only be the passing of a strange cloud, your voice would only be the wind through the wheat, you hand just the dappled sun playing tricks.

And then you follow after the boys. 

…

You aren’t sure what you are _expecting_. Some part of you desires a disaster, something horrid that you can point to and say _look, this is why we don’t tie ourselves to the humans, this is why we should not follow them._ Something to make you stay away

That first day, when you follow the boys, they merely head into town, stop at a store, and return home. The older boy pauses at the edge of the field, lets his brother catch up, and they walk to town together. Peacefully.

Nothing happens. Nothing makes you stay away.

And so you don’t stay away. And you continue to _not_ stay away. 

Because while a part of you wants disaster, wants to prove a point, a much larger part of you adores the peace. You love the humans, their fragility, their complexity, their intense ritualized behavior, their extreme emotions over the smallest of things. These children, especially, you love to watch as they flit through their lives, crying and laughing and _living_ in a way that you can’t quite understand, and yet is so familiar, so _right_.

The eldest boy, he is a thief. Not much of one, admittedly, for there is little to steal in this small town, but an apple here, a loaf of bread there, things add up. Often, his mother sends him out with little money, when he gets to the store, the owner inevitably tells him that he can only purchase so much. So he steals. Only a little, just a bit every time.

He tells his mother little lies, when he comes home with an extra loaf of bread, or with his younger brother sucking on a sugar cube. He tells her he did chores for the shop owner, that a kindly old woman offered to buy it for him, that the bread was stale, and so is cheap.

If the mother knows the truth, she says nothing.

In the back of your head, you count the lies, count the thefts. They are small, each of them, but frequent. The balance is tipped. 

But the boy means well, his soul, you know, is pure, his intentions good. And his family has so _little_ , barely enough.

He has time, yet, to mend his ways.

You tell yourself not to worry, standing in the doorway to the small house. _Earth is a mortal’s chance to prove themselves worthy_ , you know this boy is more than worthy, you know that he will make the right choices. The choices are easy, because you guide the sermons, they are clear, the rules are laid out, once this boy realizes what is at stake, he will change.

You turn to step down the entryway, confident in your assumption, but you pause when you see the gathered crowd. 

The wheat field is gone, instead you are in town, in the square near the bakery. The crowd is gathered between you and a wooden stake, driven haphazardly into the ground. From your height, you can see over the crowd easily, to the stake, and the young man tied to it.

You can see the blood running in rivulets down his back, where another man strikes him again and again with a leather whip.

“Theif! _Larron_!” shouts bubble up from the mob, the noise is horrible.

You rush forward through the crowd, which parts for you without acknowledging your mass, accommodating without seeing, thinking only of the human, _your_ human

 _Humans are so fragile_.

The blood pours from the wounds, more and more with every strike, enough to drain the young man dry. You reach his side and kneel down in front of him. His pale skin is blanched, you don’t think he can have any blood left, all of it is on the ground, mixing with the dirt and clinging to you like guilt.

You swipe your fingers in the blood, reaching for the man’s forehead and speaking.

“Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.” Your voice is barely a whisper, nearly drowned out by the crack of the whip.

But your fingers cannot touch his face, his eyes do not find yours. You are invisible, he cannot see you, cannot hear you bless him, read his rites as his life leaves him, try to take away his sin.

The blood floods the square, washing away the other humans, until all that is left is you and the young man, stained red, knee deep in the impossible flood

_All mortals are born with the same potential for good and evil, they must choose the right path to ascend_

You try to raise your voice, to scream at him, but you still can only just whisper.

“Why didn’t you choose the right path?” You choke out, “Why didn’t you make the right choices?”

Your hands fall to the dirt, grabbing at it, trying to anchor your body as the blood flows past you, threatening to wash you away. Something under your fingers is hard and round, and slides under your touch. You raise your cupped hands, running with rivulets of red, and in them are coins, slick but sparkling in the crimson sunlight.

You look back towards the man, tied to the stake, horrified, but instead you see yourself, charred and bleeding, ruined wings stretched out behind you like the twisted branches of a tree.

_All mortals have an equal chance._

The words fill your mind like static.

The charred you reaches out, grasping your face with one blackened hand. You can feel their skin flaking, peeling away in a bloody mess and slicking your face and down your neck.

They grab you by your throat, and you can’t look away from your own yellow eyes, piercing in that scorched face.

You don’t know which one of you speaks.

“What choice was there?”

And then you’re **falling.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again everyone! Bet you thought this fic was all fluffy now but NOPE! Never forget the angst!!!!  
> Sorry this chapter is a little shorter in length, I had some trouble writing the ending in a way that didn’t feel cheesy to me, and the final product ended up a little rushed, I hope it turned out ok, cause honestly, I'm a little iffy about this one  
> .  
> In terms of timeline, assume this flashback takes place somewhere around the turn of the 19th century in France (post-French Revolution of course, not that our angel is interested.) I picked this setting for two reasons, one, I do want to highlight just how old our angel is. I haven’t given you all a specific number yet, but I do want to drive home that she has been around for centuries and doing this job. Secondly, I think the early 19th century would probably be a crazy time to be our angel, just because of the industrial revolution. I know money is the root of all evil, but most common people didn’t really use money for everything until pretty late, instead opting for barter and trade. Even in the 1800’s, rural folks were still paying tithe with a chunk of their crops, so google tells me. I think money would be super confusing as an angel, and would really highlight economic inequalities that were less apparent before that. Sure in the 1700’s you had peasants and kings, but by the early 1800’s you had a middle class, which means that the economic difference between any two random people on the street would suddenly become wayyyy bigger than it used to be.  
> Oh and, fun fact, did you know that the punishment for petty theft in many parts of Europe through the 19th century was public flogging? I’m constantly thrown at how recent stuff like that is.  
> Anyways, this flashback interlude was mostly just for me to explore some history and flex my googling skills, but tomorrow (although I guess technically “today” since I’m posting this at like 3 am my time, oops) we are back to the hotel and all its baggage (ba dum tsss, ya know, cause you bring bags to a hotel…), so I’ll see you all there!  
> Translation notes:  
> Allons-y Alix, il fermera bientôt = Lets go Alex, its closing soon  
> Attends-moi = wait for me  
> Larron = thief  
> I would like to say a big thank-you to google translate for those ones because I do not, even a little bit, speak French.


	26. Contrariwise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE ON SCHEDULE PLEASE READ: Hi all! I’m reducing my update frequency. I think the chapter before this one was pretty weak, and I think that that’s because I felt so rushed to finish it. I used last week as a sort of experiment to see if I could keep my 4/5 updates a week schedule while having work and school, and the results are in: no can do. No worries though, I am going to reduce my updates to TWICE a week, Mondays and Fridays. This means that you will all get AT LEAST that many updates, but if I have a good week and get ahead, you may get an occasional extra post around Wednesday. I think this schedule will let me keep the quality and length of the chapters where I want them, because I really want to deliver a good, engaging story to you guys (plus I feel good when I think the chapters I’ve written are good, I am simple like that). As always I will let you all know if anything changes, but you can always subscribe or bookmark this fic if the changing schedule is too much to keep up with <3\. Thank you all for the love and support, you all make writing this fic super fun! Anyways, ON WITH THE SHOW!
> 
> In this chapter, you try to settle in to your new job…

Chapter 24: Contrariwise

* * *

You wake tangled in your sheets.

For a sickening moment. You are back in heaven, with dozens of hands pinning you as Gabriel moves closer, red hot brand inching towards your skin. 

You flail and let out a strangled shriek, trying to dislodge the grip of remembered hands, and tumble off the far edge of the bed. In your brief moment of freefall, your wings instinctually flap, and manage to shake themselves free of their confines and beat ineffectually at the air before you land awkwardly on your side. 

The second of weightlessness snaps you out of your half-dream and into reality. You focus on finding the edge of the sheet to free your pinned arms. Eventually, you shake the sheet free with a shudder of your wings and sit up. Your blankets and pillows are scattered across the floor, you don’t even think that they were on the bed when you woke up, and the back of your t-shirt is drenched in sweat, stickling coldly to your feathers at the neck. The corner of the fitted sheet is pulled up near the end of the bed, exposing the corner of the mattress.

You struggle to stand, the discarded sheet pooling at your ankles, and move to gather your blankets. Your nightmare is already fading, slipping away from you like air through your primary feathers, but you can still faintly smell blood and feel the hot sludge rushing over your skin. 

You shiver, trying to dislodge the thought like water droplets, and move off to the bathroom. Pulling off your clothes as you go, you check your wound. It looks good, the scab is flaking away in pieces, leaving a raw pink line of new skin underneath it. You stretch, testing your range of motion. The skin feels tight, and deep in your muscles you feel a dull ache, but you think you are close to being completely healed. 

You grab a towel and are about to step into the shower when a knock at the door stops you. You take a half step towards the door, almost answering it as you are before you remember the new pressing issue with your nakedness. 

“Just a moment!” you call out, and struggle to tuck the towel over your small breasts, unsure of how to secure it. Eventually you settle for holding it to you with one arm. 

You open the door a crack, holding your wings out of the way as best you can and looking into the hall. 

Charlie stands there with a stack of clothes in one hand. She smiles when she sees you, and you open the door to let her step inside.

“Hey, I heard a commotion, so I came to see if you’re ok. And I brought clothes!” She holds the bundle out to you.

“Oh, thank you. And I’m fine, I just…fell” You stutter over the last word. It’s not a lie per say, just an omission, but it still tastes bitter on your tongue. But you don’t want to explain to Charlie about having a nightmare, or falling out of bed. 

Charlie just smiles, not seeming to notice your hesitation.

“Okay, well, be careful, or you’re gonna set a record for most injuries in the hotel.” She steps back towards the door, “Well, I’ll leave you to your shower. Al is making breakfast for everyone in the lobby when you’re done.”

 _More food?_ You wonder briefly what Alastor’s enthusiasm for cooking is meant to accomplish. Perhaps just lowering everyone’s guard that much more?

You remember your own performance at dinner and wince, closing the door after Charlie with a nod. If he is trying to get you to lower your guard, it’s certainly working, at least while you’re eating.

You decide to try and get your hunger under control, if for no other reason than to thwart Alastor’s schemes. Whatever they may be.

Showering is much easier now that your wound is closed, and you even crack into one of the many bottles of soaps under the sink, something that smells like roses and foams up in your hair. At least you think it smells like roses. Its definitely floral, and there’s a rose pictured on the bottle. You aren’t entirely sure, because you aren’t entirely sure what roses are supposed to smell like. You imagine it’s something like this.

Its…nice.

Once you get out of the shower, you sift through the pile of clothes Charlie left with you. Like the pajamas, these all seem to be far too large, but at least they are more similar to the daytime clothes everyone else is wearing.

Your wings protest going back inside the corset, still stiff and sore from yesterday, and you have to tie off the bottom of the white button-down to stop it from hanging down your legs. The pants are slightly better, made out of something stretchy, and manage to stay on without any pins or knots, although the large size is fairly obvious.

Truthfully, you are glad for the stretch, because without it there would have been absolutely no way to pull them over your feet. Your rear talon nearly tears a gash in them as it is. You make a mental note to look for similarly elastic clothes when you finally get around to shopping. 

Dressed and showered, you let yourself out of your room. The smell almost bowls you over. Charlie wasn’t kidding, it smells like Alastor is making a _feast_. You smell something sweet and warm, and something else with that hint of heat you had smelled last night. Your mouth immediately starts watering, and you have to stop yourself from running down the hall towards the scents. You almost forget to shut your door.

_Is this going to be every day?_

You are very much going to need to get a handle on your appetite if this is going to happen regularly. The Radio Demon is _obviously_ a threat, even more so if he were to ever realize your true identity. How are you going to protect yourself if you lose all your senses the moment he puts food in front of you?

You pause at the curve of the stairs before you step out over the lobby. You remember the demon’s lecture from last night, in _too_ much detail frankly, you hope that if his cooking does happen regularly, the lectures won’t do the same.

And honestly, you can’t bring yourself to really resent the cooking, not when you can _smell_ it, because really, it smells _fantastic_. 

You scan the lobby as you descend the stairs, swallowing your mouthful of saliva and hoping to distract yourself. Alastor isn’t visible, which means he is still in the kitchen, which means he is still cooking, which means you can’t _eat_. You need to think about something else before you have a repeat of your performance during the extermination.

 _That was morbid_. You are a little surprised by your new sense of humor, it seems to have something of a mind of its own.

The lobby is surprisingly empty, which you cannot fathom given the smell. Vaggie is sitting on the couch, and appears to be cleaning her Valliant weapon, in either an act of stress-relief, or intimidation. You hope it isn’t you that she’s trying to intimidate. 

You don’t see Husker at first, completely missing him on your first scan of the room, before you notice him face down on the bar. His presence is practically nonexistent, as if he would melt into the wood if that were a ready option. You think for a moment that he’s hurt, or maybe even dead; although someone would probably have noticed if that were the case. 

You jog the rest of the way down the stairs and head towards the prone feline, trying to get a read on him as you approach. He’s putting out such a palpable aura of misery, you can’t help but reach out a hand towards him as you close the distance.

“Hi,” you say, “You’re Husker right? I don’t think that we met formally I—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Husker groans and you draw back your hand in shock. He raises his head slightly, glaring at you from under one long red eyebrow. His dark eyes look sunken, and he squints into the dim light of the lobby.

When you don’t move, he appears satisfied and lays his head back down on the bar, ears pressed flat to his head. 

“Um,” You try again, hands folded against your chest in the hopes of not angering the demon. At the sound, his ears twitch and press even flatter, and you hear a muffled hiss of something like “keep it down.”

You try lowering the volume of your already quiet voice, leaning in and whispering “are you okay?”

Husker exhales something between a groan and a growl and speaks directly into the wood.

“Do I _look_ okay?”

You consider this and decide that he definitely does _not_ look okay. Your hand creeps out again to lay on his outstretched wing comfortingly.

Immediately you are hit with a wave of dull throbbing pain. Everything hurts, the light, the dull sounds of Vaggie running her blade over a whetstone, even the smell of breakfast.

You recoil with a quiet gasp and Husker raises his head slightly again, looking at you with wary confusion.

“You’re in pain.” It’s not a question. 

Husker’s face contorts as several emotions fight for dominance. There’s a brief flash of something that looks something like guilt, before his face shuts down into its normal annoyed disinterest. He doesn’t quite look at you.

“ ’S not that bad” He grunts.

 _Okay_ , it hadn’t felt _life threatening_ , but it was certainly a long way from _not that bad._

“Can I help?” You ask tentatively, trying not to overstep his bounds. 

Husker comes very close to flinching at this, and looks at you with distinct, if pained, suspicion. He even gets halfway to sitting upright to look you in the eyes.

“Why?” Husker asks. His lip twitches in something like a snarl, and you know that you’re somehow setting his defenses off. 

_Why?_ The question seems silly, but you take a moment to try and consider your answer. The fact that Husker even needs to ask seems, itself, somewhat strange. He is clearly in pain, you felt it yourself when you touched him, and yet he seems _defensive_ about it. As though he needs to hide it.

You remember squaring off with that transformed demon in the wasteland. You remember being injured, in pain, scared. You hadn’t wanted that demon to see that, you had talked through your fear, trying to hide your weakness.

 _He thinks he’s showing weakness_ , you realize suddenly.

The thought that this person might consider you to be anything like you had considered the demon that threatened your life in Wonderland is both horrifying and strangely humbling.

 _Things are different in hell_ , you remind yourself, _altruism probably isn’t all that common_. You realize that you have no idea what kind of life that this or any other demon has been living up to this point, you shouldn’t overstep. 

But then again, Husker is clearly in need of _something_. You aren’t sure what, or how to convince him to let you help, but you are sure that he needs it. 

At your prolonged silence, Husker seems to relax slightly, and slumps back down in his seat, resting his head on his arms. 

“I’ll just drink some water or somethin’ and I’ll be fine, I’m not ‘in pain’” You almost hear the sneer in his voice at the implication. 

_Water?_ That you can do, easily.

“Okay, just wait a second,” You tell him, voice still low, and scurry off towards the kitchen.

Husker makes an abortive noise of protest but winces at the volume of his own voice and seems to give up.

At the kitchen door, you hesitate. Husker had specifically warned you last night to stay _away_ from the kitchen when Alastor is cooking, hadn’t he? The amazing smell tells you that he is indeed still cooking.

You briefly consider running back to your room and using the sink there, before remembering that you don’t have a water glass. Those are probably in the kitchen. 

_I’m just getting a glass of water_ , you reason, _he can’t possibly be upset about that_. 

_I’ll be quick._

You inhale deeply and push through the swinging door, closing it silently behind you. 

Alastor is standing over a huge machine of some sort, a _stove,_ the word comes to you, and handling about a dozen pans of sizzling food. You can feel your pupils dilate as your vision zeroes in on the food, but you steel yourself and look away, trying to focus on the task at hand instead of whatever _heavenly_ thing is frying _just a few feet from me_.

You shake your head violently. Alastor doesn’t seem to have noticed your intrusion, _not yet_ , at least, so you decide to keep it that way. You step quietly over to the nearest cabinet and start checking for water glasses. 

The first three cabinets you check are filled with dry food, and the next two are filled with dishes you don’t recognize. You try to be as silent as possible, but you are growing increasingly aware of the static lapping at your skin. Your feet feel uncomfortably cold against the smooth floor, like you’re standing ankle deep in water. _Static and water_.

Uncomfortable, you hurry to the next row of cabinets, only to trip over your _own feet_ and go sprawling with a yelp. 

Before you connect with the tiles, something cool and dark and skin crawlingly frictionless envelops you, and your vision is filled with a swath of darkness. Darkness and a jagged red gash, suspending you halfway through your fall, parallel with the floor. 

You realize suddenly that you have been caught by a shadow, like the ones that had flocked to Alastor yesterday, except this one appears to be a grotesque copy of its master. The details are impossible to make out, the shadow seems to go on forever, and trying to define where it starts and ends gives you a bout of vertigo, but it is clearly a mimic of the Radio Demon. The shape is twisted, and the once small antlers have spiraled into twisted branch-like appendages, but the shape is largely the same, and the ghastly red glowing smile leaves no room for doubt. The thing leers over you. 

“You’re a rather poor sneak-thief sweetheart.” Alastor’s musical voice comes from your left, while the sounds of cooking don’t change. You aren’t sure if he is even looking in your direction. 

The shadow makes something that approximates laughter, but sounds more like a rattling, dying wheeze, and you try to squirm out of its grip, looking for purchase against its textureless chest. It’s like trying to shove away a cloud, you can see your hands making contact, but you feel nothing, your fingers pass right through the manifest darkness. 

“That’s the second time now I’ve saved you from a rather nasty spill, if this continues I shall have to start keeping a tally” Alastor chuckles, and then, in an instant, the shadow is gone, and you fall the remaining way to the floor. 

_It’s not “saving” if you drop me afterwards_.

“ _Au contraire_ , darling,” Alastor laughs again cracklingly, and you realize that you said that _particular_ thought aloud, “but if you wish I can simply let you fall next time, I wouldn’t want to _impose_.” His voice darkens noticeably at the end and you wince.

 _Be polite_ , you tell yourself, _you know how much he values manners_.

“No, um, it’s okay, thank you for…helping” Admittedly, a poor attempt at gratitude, but you congratulate yourself for trying nonetheless. 

“Why, anytime darling, anytime. We wouldn’t want anything to _happen_ to you now would we? You _are_ such a clumsy little thing.”

 _Is that a threat?_ You honestly can’t tell, but it’s clear that Alastor won’t be peacefully tolerating your presence for much longer. You push yourself to your feet and make a move towards the cabinets, hoping to find Husker’s glass, fill it, and get out of here without hurting yourself or angering the Radio Demon.

You don’t make it halfway there when the shadow reappears, erupting from the ground like a plume of black smoke and grinning at you. You freeze in your tracks.

“Speaking of _imposing_ , darling, might I ask what you are doing in _my_ kitchen while I am so graciously cooking you and everyone else a spectacular meal?” His voice is like honey, but it doesn’t hide the crackling static lurking underneath. You know he’s angry, and you know that if you don’t get out of here _soon_ you are going to quickly learn what Husker meant by _apeshit_.

 _Also this is Charlie’s kitchen, technically._ You, thankfully, don’t say that one aloud.

“I’m waiting.” This time his voice breaks halfway through and gives way to a wave of distortion that makes you flinch.

“Water. I-I’m just getting a glass of water.” You stammer, gaze darting between the rigid back of Alastor and the hunched looming form of his shadow.

Alastor hums a snippet of some song and carefully tips the contents of his pan into a silver serving tray. The smell sets you drooling again, but you don’t dare move.

“Water?” He asks, as though the idea is ludicrous. He glances back at you with one crimson eye and you nod frantically.

“And you couldn’t wait until I was _finished_?”

You shake your head, but he’s no longer looking at you, instead pouring some kind of batter onto a skillet.

“It’s not for me.” You say hesitantly.

“Oh, no?” He asks, sounding disinterested.

You are having trouble wrapping your head around this situation. Sure you are _saying_ things, simple things, but you have the very _distinct_ feeling that the real conversation is happening without words, and that it’s one where you aren’t entirely sure what is being _said_.

The shadow edges marginally closer, and you glance at it. It doesn’t seem to be advancing with any real _intent_ , but you know Alastor is very good at hiding his _intent_. You decide to hold your ground, with difficulty.

“No.” You confirm. The static is making your skin crawl, like a thousand tiny insects are scurrying just below the surface. You resist the urge to scratch at your arms.

“Well, don’t let me keep you then.” The shadow’s hand materializes from its formless center and holds out a glass of water. You hesitate, looking at the featureless face of the creature, marked only by that wide gaping smile and two empty eyes, but you take the water.

Alastor doesn’t seem to be about to say anything else, so you move for the door, sidestepping the staring shadow and backing up to keep both _it_ and _him_ in sight.

“And dear,” You nearly jump when Alastor speaks again, but keep up your slow progress for the door. Abruptly, Alastor’s head spins around, nearly 180 degrees, to face you. His eyes are hollow and slitted into radio dials, glowing red as they pin you to the door, and his neck cracks gruesomely at the motion.

“ _Don’t ever interrupt me while I’m working”_ The words are thick with static, but the message is clear. You don’t waste any more time, shooting out the door with your prize and leaning against the wall outside. 

You catch your breath for a few moments, feeling the tendrils of static drifting intermittently through the door, grasping at you before fading away into the air.

 _What in all of hell was that about_? You wonder, reeling. Husker really hadn’t been kidding when he warned you away from the kitchen, the Radio Demon is ludicrously territorial. 

And you can’t shake the impression that there was some kind of unspoken power play at work throughout the whole encounter. Was it a test? Was he trying to frighten you? Establish some kind of weird dominance?

These mind games remind you horribly of Michael and the heavenly elite. 

You shake your head and run your free hand over your broken horn, feeling the rough edges. Whatever Alastor’s aim had been in that conversation, message _received_ , you vow to stay as far away from him as possible from now on. 

It shouldn’t be too difficult, seeing as he doesn’t seem at all interested in the actual rehabilitation of sinners. 

You shrug and push off the wall, heading back towards the bar with your miraculously intact glass of water. You only hope that it isn’t poisoned. Poisoning Husker in your first real interaction would be a very poor way to earn his trust.

The feline in question doesn’t seem to have moved at all since your interaction, still laying sprawled face down on the bar. You clear your throat softly as you approach, but he doesn’t look up, instead opting to raise a middle finger and otherwise ignore you. 

“I brought you some water.” You say tentatively, ignoring the gesture and putting the glass down near his head. 

Husker actually raises his face this time, looking between you and the glass with a certain degree of disbelief.

“Seriously?” Is all he asks, which seems redundant to you, but you nod anyways and gesture towards the glass.

Husker picks it up and holds it against the light, squinting into it as though he would see some kind of poison floating around in the clear liquid. After a moment he puts it back down with a grunt and pushes it towards you, laying his head back on the wood.

“Don’t want it.” Is all he says

You nearly double take. After all that and he doesn’t even _want_ it? Or is this another weird defense tactic. Does he really think you poisoned him?

“Look, it’s _just_ water, drink it. You’re clearly sick or something and you need—”

“First off, I ain’t sick, I’m hungover. Second off, you ain’t my fucking mom, I said I don’t want it ‘cause I don’t want it. Now quit buggin’ me.” Husker’s voice is even more of a graveled drawl than usual, and by all metrics he sounds awful. You aren’t sure what “hungover” is but it sounds bad and it looks worse. 

You stand, at a loss, as Husker fishes around under the bar with one long arm and retrieves a green bottle labelled, once again, as “cheap booze.”

 _That is definitely not going to help_.

On instinct, you lunge forward and snatch the bottle out of Husker’s clawed hand. His slowed reflexes take a moment to process what happened, but when he does he glares at you with some real venom, although the effect is diminished slightly by his overall miserable appearance. 

“Give that back.” He hisses, low in his throat, but you hold your ground and push the glass of water back towards him.

“No. This will only make you feel _worse_. Drink the water.” You insist, holding eye contact.

Husker laughs once, “You clearly don’t know much about hangovers if you think more booze won’t fix it. It’s the only thing that works kid. Now _give_ me the bottle.” Husker makes a move to stand but wobbles and sits back down in the chair, looking queasy.

You feel bad, he’s barely awake, but you know that whatever is wrong with him won’t be solved by the addition of _more_ alcohol. 

“No. Drink the water.” You say again, not budging. 

He looks at you from under his red eyebrows, and frankly seems so miserable that you find your resolve failing you slightly.

 _Compromise_ , you decide. Keep everyone happy.

“Drink the water and _then_ you can have it back.” You try again, and Husker sits up, fur puffing, eyeing you and the bottle as though calculating his odds of snatching it from you. The odds don’t appear to favor him, and he deflates slightly before snatching the glass and downing it in two huge gulps.

He slams it back on the table and glares at you, but looks slightly less likely to vomit, so you count this as a success.

“There, happy?” He asks, holding out a clawed hand expectantly. You pass him the bottle, and wince when he takes a swig almost immediately. _Compromise_ you remind yourself.

“Yes, thank you. You should take care of yourself.”

Husk wheezes out a laugh again, “Like I said you’re not my fuckin’ mom.”

You think briefly again of Charlie’s mission statement, and realize that this whole goal of redemption may be even more difficult than you had thought. Even the demons who aren’t openly hostile towards you are mired in layers of suspicion and mistrust. Sure you had helped Husker, but it was like pulling teeth. 

You sigh, and turn back towards the table.

“Let me know if you need anything else.” You offer as inoffensively as you can, and walk over to wait for breakfast.

Husker, for his part, doesn’t say anything, but you can feel his eyes following you all the way.

…

Charlie joins you a few minutes after you sit down, beaming at your oversized outfit, and chatting blithely about grand plans she has for the hotel. Angel comes down not long after, looking immaculate as always in a pair of hot pink sweat pants and a cropped t-shirt. He blows a kiss at Husker, who turns a particularly furious shade of red and downs more of his drink, before throwing himself dramatically into the chair next to you and pulling out his phone.

“Angel?” You tap the taller demon on one of his slender lower arms, and he grunts to show that he heard you, not looking up from whatever it is that he’s doing, “do you know what a hangover is?”

Angel looks up, startled, and squints at you. He even grabs your face in one manicured hand and turns it back and forth, scrutinizing you, before letting you go with a flourish.

“Damn, I thought maybe you were going to be interesting there for a second.” He sighs and goes back to his phone, “A hangover is what you get the morning after being shitfaced.”

You look at Angel blankly, and he glances at you before waving his hand and clarifying, “drunk babycakes, really fucking drunk.”

You make a soft _oh_ sound and watch Angel tap away at his phone intently for a moment.

“How do you fix it?” You ask.

Angel puts his phone down again and looks at you for a long moment.

“Why you so interested all the sudden? You’re not going to go all mother hen on me are you?” Angel leans back slightly, appraising you from a distance.

“No, I-I don’t think so?” You are again frustrated by Angel’s idiomatic speech, you can’t tell what he’s saying half the time, which is an unfamiliar obstacle for you in particular. It’s like only half of his words translate logically, and the rest come across as nonsense.

“It just…seems like something I should know?” you finish uncertainly.

You don’t exactly plan to force your help on Husker, but you would like to know the protocol, if it ever comes up again, which you have the distinct feeling that it _will_.

Angel Dust laughs at your response and pats you on the head.

“Yeah babe, I guess it might come in handy. Just drink some water, eat some food, take an aspirin and you’ll be fine. Or, ya know, get drunk again. Can’t be hungover unless your sober, so just stay drunk.” Angel shrugs with one set of arms and ruffles your hair with the other, flicking your horn for good measure before lounging back in his seat.

_Well that explains the “cheap booze.”_

You glance back towards Husker, who is taking intermittent forlorn swigs from the bottle and rubbing his temple with one knuckle. He still looks miserable, the alcohol doesn’t appear to be helping much, if at all.

Angel Dust follows your stare to land on the feline demon, and then turns back to you with a giggle.

“Awww, are you worried about Husky-baby?” Angel almost singsongs, “He’s a pro toots, don’t get your panties in a twist, he can take care of himself just fine.”

You aren’t convinced, and while Angel talks, Husker leans back down on the bar again, closing his eyes as though he plans to take a nap.

Angel’s eyes soften slightly, although you don’t notice it, and he ruffles up your hair again good-naturedly.

“You’re sweet babe, but seriously don’t worry. Hangovers suck but they don’t kill ya. Just don’t go getting a crush on whiskers over there, yeah? I got dibs.”

You blush slightly at Angel’s tone, and even more when you grasp his implication, but you don’t get a chance to protest, as Alastor chooses that moment to burst dramatically though the kitchen door trailing a cart piled with an assortment of mouth watering dishes.

The sight of the food alone wipes whatever you had been about to say clear out of your mind as you zero in on the cart.

Alastor, rapidly solidifying your first impression of him as a showman to a fault, introduces the cart with a flourish, moving it to the table with a wave of his hand. He instructs the plated to place themselves, and rattles off names as they pass him, introducing each dish.

You don’t catch even half of the names, many of which appear to be in multiple languages, but you do catch something with “cake” in it, a stack of hand-sized flat bread-like things. They smell amazingly sweet and warm from where you are, so the second Alastor gestures for the dishes to set themselves down, you go straight for those.

Charlie, seeing you load your plate with the disks, passes you a tureen of something she calls “syrup,” which also smells amazing and vaguely botanical, as well as a dish of butter, both of which she tells you to add to the disks.

She offers you about 15 more things to put on them, but you stop after the first two, which she insists are necessities, hoping to actually be able to taste the disks themselves.

You almost pick one up with your hands, intending to just fold it in half and stuff the whole thing into your mouth, when a prickling wash of white noise stops you. You glance up to where Alastor is sitting, perched several seats away at the end of the table, filling his own plate with something yellow and fluffy that you are now dying to taste, and smiling a _very_ toothy smile.

You swallow awkwardly, and try to remember the lecture he gave you last night. Your memory is generally quite good, but his piercing stare is making it hard to think. You remember something about using the silverware, and you glance down to try and map out your place setting.

Okay, spoon and knife on the right side, fork on the left. He had also said something about putting everything down in between bites. And something else about the napkin?

You struggle for a moment before your hunger gets the better of you and you reach for the fork. You decide that less silverware will increase your chances of not mixing things up, so you use the fork to section the food and eat it, trying to copy the motions of Charlie next to you.

You glance back at Alastor, who is eating his food thoughtfully, but still appears to be watching you out of your periphery. He doesn’t seem actively angry anymore, _that’s good_.

You take a bite while you watch him, but you immediately lose your train of thought when the food touches your tongue. The flavor is sweet and light but still substantial. The best way you can envision it is that it’s like eating a cloud, the way they look from far away, fluffy and soft and delicately sweet. Up close, of course, clouds are wispy and thin and little more than cold and wet, but if you could pluck one out of the sky from the ground and take a bite, you imagine that it would taste like this.

You scarf down half the plate before Charlie interjects.

“Wow, you really like pancakes, huh?” she asks, looking between you and Alastor conspiratorially.

You can only nod enthusiastically, setting your fork down and drinking the glass of milk that Charlie had poured for you earlier. When you finally catch your breath, you respond.

“Yes, they’re fantastic! They’re so sweet, I haven’t had anything sweet before, I love it!” You speak without thinking, and don’t realize until you see Charlie’s face that you have said something unusual.

“Never had anything sweet, dearest?” Alastor’s voice picks up from behind you and you slowly spin in your chair, hoping that that statement isn’t completely unbelievable.

“What an incredibly boring life you must have had.” He says, looking thoughtful. You swallow once and nod slowly, because _yes_ in terms of food, being an angel had been very boring, although less so in other aspects. 

Alastor snaps his fingers abruptly, making you flinch, and a plate hops up from in front of Niffty, who makes a small whining noise in the back of her throat as though sad to see it go.

“Well, if you so enjoyed the pancakes I absolutely _must_ insist that you try the coffee cake. It’s my own recipe and it is absolutely delightful, if I do say so myself.”

The plate spins itself to face you, and you hesitantly grab the flat cake knife and carve yourself off a piece. The open edge of the cake actually steams when you cut it, and the smell is warm and spicy and entirely different from the pancakes, you don’t even hesitate before setting it on your plate and taking a bite.

A strangled groan of satisfaction escapes you when you bite down on the cake. It’s incredible, sweet but different from the pancakes, fuller and with more texture.

“It’s incredible,” You mutter, polishing off the piece in just a few seconds, before turning back to Alastor, who appears to be watching you with interest.

Without a word, he snaps his fingers again and the coffee cake is replaced with something Angel had been actively serving himself.

“Hey, what the fuck smiles?” Angel grumbles, sullenly taking a bite of what little he managed to get on his plate.

You try that dish, and the next, and the one after that too, Alastor naming them each time, and each time annihilating your senses with the first bite. You _want_ to be suspicious, you really do, and his eyes on you _should_ be making you uncomfortable, but you can’t focus on anything other than the waves and waves of amazing new food that he keeps placing in front of you. And besides that no one else seems concerned, that you can tell from your fleeting glances in between trips to flavor nirvana, even Charlie seems almost pleased. 

_This has got to be a sin,_ part of you tells yourself after the fourth dish floats off to be replaced. _Nothing this good can be anything but a sin, a pleasure of the flesh_.

You shock that part of you by accepting a fifth helping of something Alastor calls a “danish” and willfully reveling in the taste. If this is sin, you are starting to understand why the humans have such trouble with it.

At some point, Alastor runs out of dishes to personally serve you, and you start to feel oddly heavy.

“Well, you’re quite the little epicurean aren’t you?” Alastor appears pleased, maybe a little too pleased, but then again every expression comes off as frightening when projected over that insistent smile. “I wouldn’t have expected such enthusiasm, but then again my recipes are immaculate.” He leans his head forward to rest it on his hand, and over the uncomfortable tightness in your stomach you get that oppressive sense of dread again; like a small animal suddenly caught in the sight of a predator. 

_Maybe food is not the best focus for interacting with a demon?_

_“_ ’S ok” Angel says from your left, and you catch an almost imperceptible twitch in Alastor’s smile

“Charlie dearest!” Alastor bursts out suddenly, making everyone at the table including you jump, “Remind me again if you would the role of each of your hotel staff?” Alastor’s smile is unwavering, as always, as he tilts his head towards Charlie.

Charlie blinks once and then brightens up.

“Well of course I’m the owner, and Vaggie helps me run things and do the administrative work. And then there’s the front desk and the bar,” she motions towards Husker, “and the housekeeping,” Niffty, “and rehabilitation,” You, “and then you, Al!” She smiles brightly at Alastor as though waiting for him to name his role.

Alastor’s smirk just grows, and he gestures blithely towards Angel Dust with one hand.

“And this effeminate fellow is your first patron, correct?”

Charlie nods enthusiastically, “Yup, it’s just Angel right now but we’ll have more soon!”

Alastor hums at this, and adjusts his monocle.

“So then, with only one guest so far, I take it that the rehabilitation programs haven’t yet begun in earnest?” Your brow furrows.

_Why is he so interested in the rehabilitation?_

“Not yet,” Charlie confirms, “We’re still in the planning stages right now.”

“Thank Lucifer for that,” Angel mutters.

“Indeed,” Alastor hums, and you can’t tell if he is agreeing with Charlie or Angel or both, “Well then I can’t imagine you have much use for your rehabilitation coordinator just yet, can you?”

_Wait, what?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Here's that longer chapter, as promised ^_^  
> Reminder, if you didn’t read the summary but you do read the notes for some strange reason, the new update schedule is MONDAY and FRIDAY, with possible extra episodes on Wednesday if I feel up to it. Those updates will probably be about 6-8 pages a pop, or about 3000-4500 words, give or take, which is roughly the pace I have set in the last 10 or so chapters. I think the early chapters, in hindsight, were suuuuper short, and I think I’ve found a good pace now.   
>  Well, anyways, welcome back to Hazbin, where everyone is an asshole 99.9% of the time and it’s gonna take a lot more than angelic good looks to win over the demons. Seriously no shade to anyone’s fics because I read fanfic like Angel Dust (i.e. an addict), but I do notice a tendency for the Hazbin cast to roll over and show their soft fluffy underbellies like, very quickly sometimes. Not that I don’t love soft fluffy underbellies, but I wanted to write the characters as a little more guarded, such that our angel really has to earn any trust she gets from basically everyone but Charlie. Especially since the MC is so in tune with peoples strong emotions, I think there’s a tendency to come on reeeeeally strong, which doesn’t always work well. It’s a long road ahead, but be comforted in the knowledge that Husk’s underbelly is indeed very soft and fluffy.   
>  Meanwhile, Alastor may have some tasks for our angel to complete, and I doubt that they are going to be easy. Stay tuned for more MC torture, and I’ll see y’all on Friday <3


	27. These Things Do Not Happen in Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you deal with a small change in management...

Chapter 25: These Things Do Not Happen in Dreams

* * *

“Well, if she is not yet needed at her post, perhaps I may suggest an alternate—”

“Charlie!” Alastor freezes mid-sentence, you can feel him looking at you, _smiling_ at you, but you don’t acknowledge him. Instead, you push yourself up from the table with a loud scrape and look pointedly down at the blonde demon.

“May I speak to you for a moment?” You ask her, resisting the urge to scratch at the static tickling your arms.

“Uh, sure” Charlie says, standing up sheepishly, glancing momentarily at Alastor.

You turn on your heel and march towards the kitchen, hearing Charlie’s dress shoes clack against the floor as she follows you.

You don’t know _what_ Alastor was about to suggest, but you don’t intend to stick around to find out.

Once in the relative safety of the kitchen, you reel on Charlie with an expression of exasperation.

“What?” She looks away from you and scratches the back of her head in a way that tells you she knows exactly _what._

“Charlie,” you hiss pleadingly.

“Ok, look, I know you don’t like him much—” Charlie starts, waving her hand in a gesture to dismiss the words even as they leave her mouth.

“Charlie, I’m—” You almost say _scared_ , almost admit to the stomach roiling fear that you feel in the presence of the Radio Demon, but you find the words sticking in your throat. Some part of you, some ancient small primal part of you recoils from expressing your fears. _Angels don’t feel fear_ , it cries from deep in your brain, as if vocalizing those emotions would validate them, speak them into being.

_Never show the demons fear_ , you training says.

_Charlie is not just a demon, she’s not a threat_. You try to dig up your training, claw it out of you and look it in the face and tell it that Charlie is more than her heritage.

But you can still feel the ghost of her ironclad grip on your arm. Supernaturally strong, a strength you don’t know the limits to, a strength you can’t sound.

You don’t fear Charlie, you trust her. But you can’t make yourself admit to her that you are afraid. You can’t let those emotions into the open air, for her or for yourself.

“I don’t trust him,” You say finally, hedging around your fear like a rabid animal and trying for something else, “He’s made more than one implicit threat, I very _very_ strongly feel that I should stay _away_ from him.” You are aiming to sound measured, professional even, but your voice rises and by the end you sound little more than pathetic.

Charlie looks at you for a moment, then puts a hand on your shoulder.

“I get it, he’s sketchy as fuck, I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,” You smile at Charlie’s words, you think for a moment even that you may be spared this…whatever it might be.

Your stomach sinks when she continues, “But this hotel works for redemption, and if there was ever a soul in need of that its Al. The guy practically _breathes_ sin. And you’re my rehabilitation coordinator! I didn’t just make that one up out of nowhere, I can see how good you are with everyone, Angel likes you _way_ more than either me or Vaggie, trust me.” You aren’t entirely sure that you agree with that, but you manage a half-smile anyway

“If anyone can help Al it’s you. You don’t have to do it all yourself, but I think you can really make a start, and I’ll be right there with you. I won’t make you do this, but I do believe that you _can_. I trust you.” Charlie squeezes your shoulder.

You open your mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

_She trusts me?_ You try to remember the last time anyone had ever explicitly gifted you with their trust. Sure, you had been on assignments in heaven, which requires an implicit level of trust to begin with, but you had remained under constant scrutiny, making reports, always under review, under approval.

_Trust_. The humans never had the option to trust you, you were merely a fact of their lives, an invisible force that they could just feel, but not quite grasp, much less control. You were the wind, one does not trust the wind, the wind changes.

_And so did I_. How many congregations, how many humans were you forced to leave behind? How many did you watch suffer in sin and not interfere? Your influence was ephemeral, and more often than not woefully inadequate.

_And when I took it a step further_? Disaster, plain and simple.

There was no _trust_ there, trust was never an option, never a choice, but now. Now Charlie is giving you a choice, a choice to rise to the occasion. She thinks that you have the ability, she trusts that ability.

“We don’t even know what he was going to say,” Charlie adds, trying to sound optimistic, “but I really think working _with_ him is crucial to this hotel’s success.”

_I think we can safely assume whatever he wants from me is going to involve a lot of time spent in his proximity. Unless my luck is changing in a very dramatic way._

You feel a bit helpless under Charlie’s wide-eyed smile. Honestly, on some level, and none that you would ever voice to _anyone_ , you really _are_ scared of the Radio Demon. Your instincts tell you to run, to hide, to stay far away. You don’t need to touch him or look into his soul to feel his darkness, his sin, and his power has made itself abundantly clear over the last 24 hours.

And redemption. While you love Charlie’s spirit, and admire her goal with this hotel, personal issues with heaven notwithstanding, you honestly can’t see anything in Alastor _to_ redeem. He is powerful, arrogant, unchecked. Redemption and piety take humility, they take a desire to change, and Alastor is a despot. Despot’s don’t change. Michael himself made that more than clear to you.

But, redeeming a soul, it appeals to you, deeply. To think of all those souls lost under your watch, given a second chance…

And trust. Charlie is _trusting_ you to give this your best shot. 

You run your hand anxiously over your broken horn, tugging on it, feeling it’s solidity and trying to ground yourself there.

“I don’t trust him Charlie, and if anything happens, if anything _escalates_ , I need to be able to draw a line.”

Charlie seems to be holding her breath, hands clenched to her chest in anticipation. 

“That being said, I suppose I can work with him, if only to see how realistic the possibility of—”

Charlie squeals and scoops you up into a bear hug that crushes the rest of your words in your throat.

“Oh thank you! I knew you would give him a chance I just knew it! You’re my hero, my role model. Oh my gosh I’m gonna start taking notes on how you deal with him for future reference. Oh this is an _amazing_ start to the new hotel! I’m _so_ excited that everyone is getting along!” Charlie bounces on her toes, lifting you bodily off the ground and swinging you around. The combination of losing your footing and having your wings pinned by both a corset and Charlie’s crushing grip spikes your adrenaline, and you squirm until Charlie plants you, gasping for breath, back on the ground with another shrill squeal.

“Okay sorry, sorry, breathing, right. Oh my gosh I’m so excited, I’m going back out there right now! I can’t wait!” Before you can catch your breath, Charlie bolts out the swinging kitchen door and out of your sight line.

You have the distinct sense that you have just signed on to something without knowing the terms, and that you will most likely come to regret that fact. You straighten and lean back against the kitchen wall, massaging your ribs.

_But Charlie trusts me_. 

The thought is a warm coal in your chest, something delicate and precious and beautiful. You don’t quite want to let it go, even if the circumstances are…concerning, at best.

Abruptly, something shifts in your peripheral vision and snaps your head around. The kitchen is empty around you, but your instincts are firing off, telling you that something isn’t right, something is _here_.

You do frequently have the sensation of being watched in the hotel, and the dark patterns and low lighting don’t tend to help that, but the feeling is much more acute in this moment.

You scan the room, feeling your pupils dilate and constrict, trying to locate the source of your unease. You hadn’t turned the lights on when you walked in, the light streaming through the round window being sufficient for a short conversation, but now you are painfully aware of the receding darkness at the edge of the safe halo of light. The shadows seem to swim under your gaze, to flex and bend and writhe away from your sight. 

You feel a sense of vertigo, of double vision, as though you are looking at two separate things at once, overlaid on top of one another. The feeling is familiar, frighteningly so, but you can’t place it.

The darkness seems to surge forward imperceptibly, bow towards you like a membrane, like surface tension. You shake your head to try and dislodge the sensation, and place a hand behind you on the door.

With one last frenetic glance over the room, you push your way out the door and back into the lobby. You keep backing up, staring at the kitchen door in the hopes that whatever is behind it will, you don’t know, put its face up to the window? Its finally Alastor’s grating laughter that forces you to turn towards the table. He and Charlie appear to be chatting animatedly, while everyone else but Vaggie had presumably finished their meals and drifted off to their respective spaces. 

“Lovely of you to rejoin us darling, Charlie and I were _just_ talking about your interim assignment, if you would be so kind as to join us.”

Charlie smiles at you encouragingly when you sit down next to her, Vaggie seems to be maintaining an air of passive disinterest. _No help there_.

“Interim assignment?” You ask warily, trying not to lean away when the Radio Demon leans forward over his tented hands.

“Yes indeedy, since there are so few wayward souls in residence for the time being, Charlie and I think that your talents could best be put to use elsewhere,” Alastor talks with his hands, clasping and unclasping them, waving one then the other, the effect is somewhat hypnotic, you wonder if that is intentional.

_Talents?_ You doubt Alastor has any knowledge of your actual talents, or intends to put any of them to work in whatever task he has planned. 

“And of course, as the newest partner in this hospitality endeavor, I do have quite a bit of work on my plate. There’s much to do before we can have this place running at full capacity.” There’s a strange downturn on the last few words, something strangely foreboding. You wonder what exactly he has in mind for “full capacity.” You also doubt very much that he needs or even wants help making that happen.

Alastor seems to have paused to wait for you to speak, but when you say nothing he continues, undeterred.

“Accordingly, we thought it best that you, my dear, assist me until such time as your services are needed elsewhere.” Alastor’s smile widens by a fraction and he rests his chin on his hands, apparently done.

It takes a moment for your brain to catch up with his words, and when it does, you think for a moment that you have heard wrong.

“Assist you?” You ask. You has expected a task, something with a clear beginning and end. _Work with the Radio Demon this week on recruiting more guests_., or something along those lines. “Assist” could mean anything, could me any length of time. 

“Yes my dear, with whatever it is with which I require assistance, I do believe our partnership could prove to be very,” he pauses for a moment, “interesting.”

“Interesting?” you squeak, trying very hard not to make a break for the door.

Alastor chuckles and makes a condescending gesture.

“You’re skipping like a broken record darling,” He says, then, turning to Charlie, “Are you quite sure she’s ‘all there’ dear?”

You bristle slightly, even knowing that he is intentionally provoking you.

“What would this ‘assistance’ require?” you ask, trying to get the discussion under some degree of your own control.

Alastor looks scandalized, placing a hand to his chest.

“My dear you cannot possibly expect me to foresee every task that will need doing, repairing and readying this hotel for guests will doubtless require more than just my own set of hands!”

_Doesn’t he have an army of living shadows or something?_ You aren’t sure the extent of the shadows’ corporeality, but the one earlier had caught you mid fall, you expect that it can also repair or whatever it is that Alastor insists he needs.

You narrow your eyes, but Alastor just blinks at you, as innocent as his particular brand of smile can be. You turn to Charlie, hoping for some help or clarification, but she seems absolutely thrilled by the idea. 

_She does want me to report back about redeeming him. Maybe the task itself doesn’t matter._

But, _anything?_ You pale at having yourself so far tied to the whims of this particular demon.

“So, how does this…arrangement work exactly?” You say, as much to Charlie as to Alastor, although of course the latter takes center stage.

“Why, my dear, it’s quite simple, you merely report to me in the mornings rather than Charlie here for your tasks. Think of me as your overseer.”

That doesn’t _sound_ terrible, but you have a sinking feeling. You look to Charlie.

“Like Al says, you’ll basically be working with him for a while, until we need you for rehabilitation stuff. I’ll still be around obviously, so you can always come to me with any questions.”

Charlie looks so genuinely excited it almost hurts. _Report to Alastor in the morning, do what he says on your own._ That doesn’t sound like much of a _partnership_ , you aren’t sure if it really qualifies to fulfill Charlie’s ideas about working _with_ Alastor. But, you can’t shake the feeling that there is more to this than the Radio Demon is letting on. 

_Does he actually have something that he wants me to do? Is this just a power play for interrupting him this morning?_ Surely not, that has to be too trivial even for this theatrical demon.

“So what do you say my dear? We will have such fun together I’m sure,” Alastor extends one hand halfway to you, and you look at it with a raised eyebrow.

_Charlie trusts me._

You sigh, feeling the uncomfortable weight of responsibility, and nod.

“Yes, it sounds fine.”

“Wonderful, it’s a deal th—” A spark of green electric energy blooms in Alastor’s outstretched palm, and you, Charlie, and Vaggie—who until now you had assumed wasn’t listening—all cut him off midsentence.

“NO!” You all shout together. You, being closest, shove his hand back towards his end of the table, cringing even at that small contact. 

“No deals!” You exclaim, gesturing frantically to Charlie, “I work for Charlie, I, um, I can’t just make deals. It-It’s a conflict of interest.” You stammer.

Alastor tilts his head as his smile widens, squinting his red eyes in a way that you find explicitly predatory.

“Quite right my dear, quite right, how responsible of you. I would so hate to impose.”

_There’s that word again_ , you notice, _impose_. You feel like his wording was somehow meant specifically for you, but the subtext is far beyond your grasp. Whatever he’s trying to say, it succeeds at little more than making you uncomfortable. 

Skin crawling, you push yourself up from the table for a second time.

“Well, thank you for a fantastic breakfast, Alastor, I—”

_You what? Look forward to working with him?_ That’s entirely untrue, and you find that you can’t tell such a blatant lie, even to someone like Alastor.

“I also hope working with you will be interesting.” You settle for his own wording. Not precisely true either, you would more than prefer boring to _terrifying and dangerous_ , but interesting can be a positive word, at least, so you aim for that. 

You take a half-step towards, well, anywhere else, when a sharp _tap-tap_ sound makes you pause. You turn slowly back to Alastor, who is tapping a single clawed digit on the wooden table over and over again. You look from his hand to his face, wondering what the gesture means, when he speaks.

“Don’t go too far now dear, we have a whole work day ahead of us.”

You swallow, hopefully not audibly, and nod. Alastor’s finger stops tapping, and you scurry off to find somewhere to hide for as long as it takes Alastor to come up with your new task. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, slightly shorter chapter today, since I decided to split this one up, expect an extra upload next Wednesday to make up for it :)  
>  Our poor angel, just trying to do the right thing, that’s not an easy path to follow in hell, but then again it wasn’t too easy in heaven either.   
> On a tangential note: I have some sketches of the MC. I'm not much of an artist (more of a writer, lol) so they aren't, like, amazing, and most of them are just pencil and occasional ink, but they are sitting in my sketchbook. Would you all be interested in seeing my interpretations, or do you prefer to work with your own mental images? If you are, I could easily upload them on a deviant art or make an Insta, and post some links in the future. So if anyone wants that, thats totally an option!   
> Also: I would like to gauge interest in giving the reader character a specific name. I am undecided, but I have seen some interest in the comments. Would you all prefer her to stay nameless or be given a name to be used on occasion? As always, comments, suggestions, critiques, etc. are always appreciated <3   
> Love you guys! See you all Monday!


	28. Update: Art (Not a Chapter)

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to update you all that I created an Instagram attached to this fic where I posted a few of my drawings. Again, I'm no artist, so the quality is inconsistent, but it seemed like you all wanted to see them, so here ya go!

Link: https://www.instagram.com/chrysiridia_fanfic/  
Username: chrysiridia_fanfic

My profile pic is the same as my AO3 account so you'll know its me! If I come up with any more drawings, I'll post them there and link them to you all, and if anyone wants to create any fan art, I would be more than happy to link it on the fic or add it to the Instagram with credit! All skill levels welcome lol <3 

Thank you all for the support, comments, kudos, and bookmarks!   
See you all tomorrow night for your regularly scheduled update! (and don't forget there will be an extra update on Wednesday this week!) 

-Chrys


	29. They Happen Only in Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, your first day on the job has some hiccups...

Chapter 26: They Happen Only in Nightmares

* * *

“I’m sorry, you want me to, what?”

You are standing near the bar, looking at Alastor with a blank expression. Husker is still pursuing his endless mission to become part of the furniture, and doesn’t seem to be paying this exchange any mind. You almost wish he would react, just to give you some sense of reality. Talking to Alastor is like flying with your eyes closed, disorienting and frightening, and you never seem to be able to guess where the winds will take you, at least if Husker we’re awake you would be flying blind _with_ someone.

“Fix the wall dear, are you feeling quite well?” Alastor smiles at you condescendingly, as though he is speaking to a child.

You look from the Radio Demon, to the ruined wall behind you. The remains have ceased to smoke, but the hole is huge, taller even than Angel, and maybe twice your body length. 

_At least I’m shorter now_ , you think wryly, _twice my old body length would be even_ more _ridiculous_.

But, no, the size of the damage isn’t the point, the point is that Alastor seems to think you capable of repairing it.

You feel your eyebrow twitch in something like annoyance as you turn back to the grinning figure. You are really struggling between a desire to run, and a desire to yell; it’s beginning to give you a headache.

“How,” You pause and take a measured breath, reigning in your temper and reminding yourself that Alastor is in all likelihood _much_ stronger than you, “do you expect me to do that?”

Alastor taps his palm to his forehead as though just thinking of this _very obvious_ issue.

“Oh, how silly of me, I almost forgot,” He snaps his fingers and near the wall a pile of red bricks and several buckets appear, “of course you’ll need the right tools for the job, I think you’ll find everything there.”

He looks smug. 

Your eyebrow twitches again.

When Alastor had said he would have a “task” for you, you had expected…well honestly you hadn’t expected much, the man is clearly a sadist, but this, probably due to your own foolish optimism, blows your expectations entirely out of the water. 

Help him with, you don’t know, _paperwork_ , hold his microphone for him while he does…whatever it is that he does, something degrading and pointless and entirely menial, but _fixing the front wall_?

You run your eyes over what you now realize is _brick and mortar_ —you thank your time on earth for that one, architecture was one of the few human things you found easy to grasp and appreciate—and back to the gaping wound in the front of the building. Chunks of stone dot the lawn, although Niffty appears to have cleaned away the debris from inside the lobby, at least.

_Small favors._

The hole itself is a jagged menagerie of brick and wood scaffolding, the wall appearing to be some combination of the two. Farther away from the singed edges, shattered plaster clings to the crumbling frame, farther from that even there is peeling wallpaper, a colorful combination of apples and what look like some kind of tents. And, of course, eyes: the lobby motif. The front doors, which had been heavy wood and stained glass from what you remember, are completely missing. You catch the lower edge of some kind of steel rebar poking through from the top of the wound.

You look back at the pile of bricks, then turn slowly to Alastor. 

_This has to be a joke._ You plead silently.

Alastor, in spite of his ever present smile, does not seem to be laughing.

“Alastor, I can’t fix _that_ damage,” you wave a hand collectively to the blown out wall and debris, “with brick and mortar.”

“Why, of course you can my dear,” Alastor laughs heartily and plants a hand on your head, just between your horns. The weight makes you freeze, thinking for a moment that he might grab you or yank your hair or something like that. Instead, he just ruffles your bangs as his radio backing track laughs for him. 

“What is it that Mr. Ford said, ‘whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right.’ Go on now, it’s all in the attitude.” Alastor’s hand doesn’t leave your head, but his increasingly patronizing speech manages to snap you out of your intimidated stillness.

You look up at him, from under his hand—which you find _particularly_ annoying but don’t have enough desire to actually touch him to remove it—and frown.

“It’s not about attitude, Alastor, I physically cannot repair _that_ wall with _those_ tools. For one, the door was blown clean off. I can’t rebuild the door, or the doorframe, out of bricks and cement.”

Alastor looks slightly thrown by this assessment, as though he hadn’t actually considered the logical parameters of the task before he attempted to assign it to you. You think his smile falls, just a fraction of a centimeter, and you tally a small mental victory.

“Just try your best darling, I’m sure you can figure out some solution.” He looks down at you, with all the petulance of a child whose game is falling apart.

_Does he just want me to waste time?_ You wonder vaguely. _He doesn’t seem to have actually thought about this, was this just the first task that he thought of?_

“Alastor, I really don’t think that’s possible. This wall isn’t _just_ made of brick. There’s wooden beams, plaster, wallpaper, and I’m honestly not sure what else. To fix it, I would need at least those materials.”

Alastor seems to consider your words, and he doesn’t make a move to speak. Emboldened, you keep talking with increasing frustration, hoping faintly to reason your way out of this. 

“And I’ve never fixed a wall before, or anything comparable, really. I think we would be better off finding someone with more experience—”

Alastor taps one nail on the top of your head, just once. 

Suddenly you are very aware of how _sharp_ his claws are and how _large_ his hand is in comparison to your skull. You pale as you imagine him repeating the motion, piercing straight through your head, or just crushing the whole thing in his palm, damage you _won’t_ heal from, or at least, not for a while. Your words die in your throat with a strangled croak leaving you silently looking at Alastor’s strained smile with wide eyes.

“I hadn’t taken you for someone so chatty when we talked before, you were quiet as a mouse when we spoke in the kitchen. I practically had to pull every word out of you” He leans down towards you, his hand on your head pinning you in place, until his hot breath ghosts across your cheeks and his red eyes nearly fill your vision, “I do think I quite liked you better when you were silent.”

You freeze.

Your instincts are powerful things, things you rarely question. As an angel, instinct drove most of your decision-making. Instinct told you who was a sinner and who wasn’t, it told you who you could save and who was beyond your reach. During exterminations, instinct took over, combat was in your divine blood, you had to do little more than remember a few facets of basic training and let your body do the rest for you. Sure, there were _rules_ , but angels were designed to _want_ to follow them. Instinct should do most of the work.

You, perhaps, are an anomaly in that particular category, but your instincts are still powerful, the cornerstone of your personality. They are hard to overcome, you find that you don’t usually _want_ to overcome them.

And yet…

With Alastor’s hand on your head, claws just pricking at the scalp, palm pressing flat to stop you from moving, with his sharp row of yellow teeth just inches from your face, his predatory breath on your tongue, you’re instincts are unequivocally telling you to _back down_. Alastor practically _breathes_ power, too much power, unstoppable power.

But something about the _way_ he tells you to stop talking, something about the implication that _he liked you better_ when you didn’t speak, maybe it’s just your new unbridled emotions, but the wave of blistering _anger_ that rises up in you scorches your instincts, withers away your smarter, better nature into ash and fills your veins with stupid, courageous fire. 

You spent _so much_ of your life in heaven staying silent, pretending not to have anything to say. You _know_ that this is a foolish thing to focus on, that your voice here doesn’t matter, that this isn’t a hill to die on. But the idea of being silenced again, of being kept quiet…

In a motion so quick that you nearly startle yourself, you clamp a hand down on Alastor’s extended arm, forcing his elbow to bend and his body to lurch forward, trapping his wrist against your horn and his forearm against your shoulder. The motion brings his face precipitously close to yours, so close that your noses are almost touching, so close that your words are hissed directly into his unfaltering smile.

“ _Don’t_ tell me to be silent.” Your voice is hot and low and full of venom, spit directly into the Radio Demon’s ever-grinning face, “I _said_ that I can’t. Either give me the proper tools or give me a different task.”

Then, with your opposite hand, you knock Alastor’s arm off of you. You don’t push him back, nor do you step away yourself, you just stand there, holding your ground. For a moment, with his face so close to yours, and the dim red light streaming through the broken wall glinting off his teeth, you are _certain_ that he will attack you. You can feel the white noise buzzing in your head, the cold, cold ocean of static lapping at your ankles, and his smile is so severe, razor sharp. You feel your fear pooling in your gut, but you don’t move, staring straight into his glassy red eyes, waiting for something to happen.

And then something breaks, something thin like a spider web, and the moment is gone, and Alastor is straightening with a tired sigh, and fixing his suit jacket with one hand.

“Such a troublesome thing you are, really, like a spoiled child. And here I thought that I had given you an easy task, something simple that even a little whisp like you could complete. Why, it shouldn’t take more than a snap of the fingers,” As if to illustrate, Alastor snaps his fingers and, in a pop of force that you can feel somewhere deep in your chest, the jagged hole in the wall is gone. 

The stained glass apple doors are back, along with the flamboyant wallpaper. For a moment, you have a disorienting sense of double vision, a fuzzy distorted outline of where the break in the wall had been, a warped view of the yard outside, as though you were looking at it through some kind of film. Then you blink, and the sensation is gone, and the wall is perfect, just as it was. You honestly wouldn’t know anything had ever been amiss.

You have half a mind to be upset at what is essentially an admission that Alastor assigned you a useless, menial task, despite his ability to accomplish it himself in seconds, but frankly all you can feel is a sinking sort of apprehension.

_Sure,_ you can turn down his first task, it was impossible and pointless, no doubts there. 

_But_ , you can’t help but think, _now what_?

Alastor doesn’t spare a glance at the wall before stepping towards you and sweeping you up in one arm. You aren’t sure how he does it, but he manages to pin _both_ of your hands in the process, allowing him to pull you along in an iron grip with almost no resistance. 

“But I suppose if you cannot even manage something as _simple_ as that, I shall have to find you another task, something even you can do.” Alastor hums as he parades around the lobby, soft music seeping out under his voice, with you pinned like a marionette to his side. You almost wish Husker would wake up from whatever stupor he is in and maybe lend some help. 

Although, on further consideration, an audience would likely just encourage Alastor’s behavior.

Without warning, he grabs one of your hands in his and twirls you away from him, extending you to arm’s length before pulling you back with a sharp yank that threatens to pop your shoulder out of socket. You feel like a doll, useless and tiny under his hands. 

“And what a temper you have my dear, very unexpected. I daresay I even enjoyed your little performance.” Alastor muses, with you clamped backwards to his chest under one vicelike arm, “quite the little spitfire you’re turning out to be.” He tosses you out again, catching you with one hand before pausing in his impromptu dance and beginning to circle you like a shark.

_Don’t react_. You tell yourself, _don’t give him more of a reason than you already have._

“Although I don’t take kindly to being touched, I must warn you,” Alastor is behind you, trailing one hand over your shoulder. You can’t decide if the motion is ironic, or if he is just making a point.

_Either way, noted_. No touching, no problem. Probably…so long as you don’t have to defend yourself. _Does attacking count as touching?_

Abruptly, the air before you shimmers with a low hiss, and Alastor snaps into existence, already leaning down to eye level. In spite of yourself, you jump, and nearly bolt, but find your feet numbly rooted to the floor.

“Pay attention dear. You’re so distractable, what _am_ I going to do with you?” Alastor flicks your nose with one clawed finger and then straightens, resuming his circling.

_Send me back to Charlie?_ You silently pray, although you are sure at this point that no one is listening.

“Well darling, what say you to this? You keep that dear little temper of yours in check and I’ll think of a brand new task for you. I would so hate to send you back to Charlie _empty handed.”_ The last words are so steeped in implied significance that you can’t help but wonder if he had somehow overheard Charlie ask you to work on his redemption. As impossible as it sounds, you did see him manipulate the entire lobby for the sake of a musical number, so you wouldn’t exactly mark it as beyond his abilities, merely beyond his interest. 

“Do I have a choice?” You ask dryly, trying to unstick your feet from the floor. 

The distorted laughter of a crowd bubbles up from the air, alongside Alastor’s own.

“Isn’t she a riot?” He seems to ask his invisible audience, slowly walking back into your sightline, “of course you have a choice you silly girl, what fun would there be if you didn’t?”

You strongly suspect that any _choice_ available to you is in name only, and that any _fun_ is strictly for Alastor’s benefit, but you sigh anyway and shrug in wordless concession.

“Wonderful my dear, wonderful,” A muted applause rings out behind him as he ruffles your hair, “and I believe I have _just_ the task for you.”

You are starting to think that the theatrics really dull the fear factor, as your unease gives way to a droll sort of acceptance. You move your head slowly to the side to watch the Radio Demon, looking entirely pleased with himself, walk past you.

_At least he’s not angry_.

“This is quite a large building, I couldn’t help but notice, it would be too easy for guests to _disappear_ down its halls.” You almost roll your eyes at that one, overly dramatic even for him. “We wouldn’t want anyone getting lost on their way to their rooms, now would we?”

You don’t really see where he is going with this line of thinking. 

A sharp talon lands on your forehead, tilting your head all the way back to look at Alastor. He is bent at the waist so that he can lean over you, and his hair hangs down slightly, drifting away from his face. You just barely catch the edge of that tiny red X you had seen earlier, right in between his eyebrows.

He looks at you for a moment, eyes crinkling, before he continues.

“I think this hotel is in dire need of a _map_ to help guests find their way, wouldn’t you agree?” You swallow thickly, and try to nod. His smile is somehow even more menacing upside-down.

“Excellent, we’re in agreement then.”

Alastor’s finger disappears from your head, and your feet are suddenly released from whatever had been holding them to the floor, sending you tipping backwards and to the ground with a yelp.

You push yourself up on one arm, rubbing at your broken horn with the other, and watch Alastor’s back as he walks away from you, shoes making a decisive _click click click_ against the hardwood.

You blink, thoroughly confused.

“Wait!” You say, without really considering it. Alastor stops, turning his head just enough to watch you without having to turn around fully. He is silent, waiting for your presumed question.

The gears in your head turn slowly, before finally churning out something resembling a task in what he had just told you.

“You want me to…make a map of the hotel? For guests?” You say the words slowly, trying to gauge his reaction, trying to see if you are on the right track.

“Why yes dear, that should be something that, surely, even you can manage.” Alastor’s smile is just visible on the sliver of his face that you can see.

_A map?_ You don’t know if that is something common to hotel’s, but you find that it makes a degree of sense. This building had looked huge when you saw it from the outside, you yourself only found Charlie’s room because it was right down the hall from…

Your thoughts grind to a halt.

_The hotel is big._ You realize. You hadn’t counted floors initially, but there had to be at least 5. Not to mention the _ship_ parked nose up against one wall. And for some reason your brain is conjuring the image of an entire locomotive over the entrance.

Is all of that…do all of those additions have _rooms_ in them? As in _livable_ rooms. _Mappable_ rooms?

And the building itself, even on the second floor the hallways seems to wind in a way that makes no logical sense, jumping back and forth schizophrenically. To map that you would need…In just simple time spent alone you would need —

Alastor’s laugh pulls you out of your mental calculations, and back to a rather grim reality.

“Well dear, there’s no time like the present. _Better get started.”_ And then with a backwards wave he is gone. 

You stay for a moment, half propped up on the floor of the entryway, staring after the dissipating shadow and contemplating the insane degree of impossible to which Alastor has just raised your task bar, before collapsing back onto the hardwood floor to stare at the ornately carved ceiling.

The floor is cold, which feels fantastic against your back. You feel rather like you’ve run a marathon, or flown half the globe, your heart still hammering in your chest with residual adrenaline.

_I should have just stayed in wonderland_. You think dismally.

“You shoulda just fixed the damn wall” A muffled, gruff voice comes from somewhere above your head.

So Husker _was_ awake through all of that. 

Somehow, you find that strangely comforting, that at least someone was there to witness whatever circus you had just been through. Maybe you should take a page out of his book, feign sleep whenever the Radio Demon is around.

You laugh acerbically, closing your eyes against the dim red of the lobby.

_Shoulda fixed the wall_.

“Amen.” You say.

Then Husker laughs too, a wheezing sarcastic thing muffled by what you can only assume is the top of the bar.

_Amen_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Hope you had a good weekend!   
> So about the wall. This scene is definitely inspired by a similar scene in Dapper Dresser. As always, I adore that lovely fic, and it was a huge inspiration to me. I love the wall-repair chapter there too, and the conversation reader has with Niffty, it’s all super cute! That being said, I remember thinking, the first time I read it, just how insane it was to try and fix a wall with ONLY brick and mortar. Walls are like, pretty complicated, even brick walls, which I don’t think are usually brick all the way through (for earthquake safety). Plus, the hotel’s walls look like maybe drywall or plaster under wallpaper and paint, which is like a whole other can of worms, and I don’t even really know anything about walls or construction or whatever. It just struck me as very funny when I first read it, and I always had it in my head that Alastor gave the reader a literally impossible task, let her rebuild the whole wall with bricks, and then just snapped it back to how it was before anyway, just to fuck with her.   
> And then the more I thought about THAT, the more I pictured him asking our angel to do the same thing, and her reaction. She is, of course, intimidated by Alastor, and generally more quiet and reserved, but after the first few chapters of her generally being a badass, I felt like I was losing some of her guts and temper with the new setting, so I ended up writing her as somewhat confrontational here. I mean, she is like really really old, and has seen a lot of buildings, I think she knows that this job is both pointless and functionally meaningless.   
> Haha, well anyways, I hope you all enjoyed that brief homage to Dapper Dresser,   
> Oh, and for clarification if anyone was confused, when Alastor refers to “Mr. Ford” he’s talking about Henry Ford, early American business mogul, who did actually say that quote (probably), thank you to my Dad for that random and otherwise useless piece of knowledge.


	30. Simply Impassible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update 10/23: my internet is down, chapter will be up tomorrow instead! Sorry guys :/
> 
> In this chapter, you realize that mapping the hotel may be a big task...

Chapter 27: Simply Impassible

* * *

It feels good to lay on the floor and laugh with Husker. It’s strangely cleansing, like flying in the rain. Your fears drip away from you with Alastor’s disappearing form, leaving you wheezing but clean. You push yourself up, reclining on your hands, and listen to Husker’s growling chuckles dissipate behind you. 

“Hey,” you ask, and hear Husker grunt noncommittally. You spin to face him, crossing your legs and resting your face on your hands. He tilts his head up to rest his chin on the bar, regarding you with only half his face visible, capped by his arcing red eyebrows. You wonder briefly if the eyebrows are feathers or fur, but you can’t tell from where you sit. They are impressive though, silly even, but lend his face a weird sort of grudging emotion, as though they are displaying his feelings without his express consent. The idea is oddly funny, and you can’t help but grin, just a little.

Husker’s eyebrow inches up further, and you realize that you are losing his attention, or possibly creeping him out. You scramble to backtrack to your original train of thought.

“Do you think he actually wants me to map the hotel?”

Husker seems caught off guard, and considers this for a moment before replying.

“Dunno. Knowing that dick it could be just to fuck with you, and with that performance, he definitely wants to fuck with you.” Husker trails off, looking towards the new front doors, and takes a half-hearted swig from his bottle. He looks a little lost, and you think maybe trying to consider Alastor’s motivations is as confusing to him as is it to you, even though the two seem to know each other.

“But?” You urge, when he doesn’t say anything.

“What?” He spins back to you and seems surprised to find you still sitting there, waiting for his response, “oh, right. Fucker also likes his plans. Could be something in the hotel he wants to find, or hide. Maybe he just wants a map. I dunno, and I don’t really fuckin’ care, just—” Husk cuts himself off with a swig from the bottle, and then pins you with a thoughtful stare. Something in his look is guilty, the second time you think that you have identified that particular emotion in him without obvious cause. 

There is something strangely, bitingly sad about this demon, a kind of stripped, resigned emptiness. You can’t place it, it slips just out of your grip, but it does strike you as tragic, immensely tragic. Tragically human. You wish, suddenly, illogically, that you had known this demon in life. That you had saved him. That you _could_ have. 

_If only I’d been there_. The thought bubbles up, unbidden, and tastes acidic in your mouth. You know that you couldn’t have helped, circumstances, time, place, everything else be damned. You had never really, _really_ , saved anyone, had you?

Husker, watching you stare at him, and then far, far through him, becomes increasingly fidgety before he finally breaks eye contact, finishes off his bottle and unceremoniously lobs the entire thing across the room to smash into the far wall.

“Get the fuck out of here kid, ain’t you got shit to do other than creep me out?” Husker busies himself digging below the bar, presumably looking for a fresh bottle, making intermittent frustrated cat-like meows. You stare for a moment, still startled by the violent shattering glass, but Husker gives no indication that he is going to resurface anytime soon, so you eventually push yourself up from the floor with a muted sigh. He is right, you _do_ have something to be doing, heaven forbid the resident despot should find that you had spent the day chatting with the bartender instead of mapping the hotel.

So then, making a map? Husker seems to think that there is at least a chance that Alastor want’s actual _results_ from you, rather than just to make you visually miserable for his sadistic pleasure. While thwarting Alastor in his plans to profit off of your own suffering holds a certain undeniable appeal, you don’t want to risk his wrath at noncompletion. That, and you are somewhat scared to feed this rebellious streak you are developing. It’s not new, per say, considering your **fallen** status, but you don’t think that you need to butt heads with two megalomaniacal tyrants in the same century, at least.

And while he clearly didn’t need you to fix the wall—he could do it himself with no visible effort—a map could, conceivably, require actual work even from him, which gives him a plausible reason to foist the whole task off onto you.

Although you do wonder at the limits of his abilities. Could he simply snap a map into perfect existence? Is this whole exercise just a more complicated power play, with a less obvious conclusion. The wall had been…childish. Maybe this is the scaled-up approach?

You consider going to Charlie, telling her about the wall and the map, maybe talking her into rescinding her arrangement with Alastor, but you almost immediately scrap the idea. Charlie gave you a task, a real one, one she _trusts_ you to complete, one she _needs_ from you, one she believes only you _can_ complete. You have to at least try, at least know if her goals of redemption are possible, you owe her that much, surely, for trusting you.

If you can’t talk to Charlie about Alastor’s behavior, you _can_ talk to her about mapping the hotel. Best case scenario and she decides the whole endeavor is pointless and sends Alastor off on a different, less menial tangent. Worst case, she can at least point you in the right direction, maybe she even has a map, or something like it. She does own this hotel after all. Or…at least, Lucifer does.

A shiver prickles the hairs on your arms at the thought of that great, amorphous evil. You remind yourself, not without effort, that Charlie is an individual, not determined by her father’s identity.

With a shake and a defeatist exhale, you step towards the stairs, intent on locating your boss. _Boss’s boss_? You shrug internally.

“Hey,” Husker’s roughhewn voice grapples your attention back towards the bar, and you spin to face him.

He seems to have found a new bottle, but hasn’t opened it, instead opting to hold it in front of him as though he can burn the cap off with his brooding stare alone. His ears twitch as though shaking off water drops, and he glances up at you. You notice, for the first time, the two little heart-shaped marks in the fur over his eyebrows, drawn down into his conflicted expression. A human phrase pops into your head for a moment, _wearing your heart on your sleeve_ , and you have to suppress a giggle. You don’t have this whole business of humor even remotely under control, and your penchant for laughing at the most inappropriate times is becoming a worrying pattern.

You wait for him to speak, but after a moment he shakes his head of whatever thought he had been entertaining and waves you away with one spindly claw.

“Nevermind, get outta here.” Husker halfheartedly tilts his bottle back and forth, as if the glass holds all the answers. Maybe for Husker it does.

 _Tragically human_.

A sudden burst of inspiration strikes you, and you walk the half-dozen steps back to the bar, waiting for him to glance up with flattened ears.

“What? I already told ‘ya to leave, kid.”

You fidget for a second, and try to cling onto the nerve you had just a moment before.

“Can…Can I call you Husk?” You ask uncertainly, using the nickname Charlie had already so easily assigned the cat demon.

It seems, friendly? You want to be friendly with Husker, he feels _good_ to you, you _know_ it, and it makes you want to connect with him.

 _It makes you want to save him_ , a part of you realizes, but you seal that part up and stow it away, and don’t allow any further questions of your motives.

“The fuck?” Husk leans back slightly, looking you up and down, and you can feel yourself deflating under his gaze. 

You have no idea _how_ to connect with these demons. You lack Charlie’s equal-opportunity enthusiasm, or Angel’s carefully curated theatrics, even Vaggie’s guarded distance. You just…

“Sorry, um, never mind.” You tug on your broken horn anxiously and make to walk away.

Husk’s response is muffled by the bottle, and his increasingly slurred speech. You have to turn back to him to hear him clearly when he repeats himself.

“’S fine. I don’t give a shit what you call me.” He shrugs into his bottle, not looking at you.

You feel your smile like a dive through open air, it bubbles up from within you like something beautiful and free and poetic, like something intensely _right_.

 _Connection_.

You think that Charlie would probably give Husk a hug, if she hadn’t already, but you settle for a single, laughing “Thank you,” and then run for the stairs before your smile threatens to swallow you whole.

You hear Husk’s muffled snorting laughter behind you, clearer than before even in his gruff voice. It sounds like music.

…

You eventually find Charlie, after standing in the stairwell and trying to regain control of your facial muscles, and then running all over the second floor trying to locate your erstwhile boss. At some point, while knocking on Charlie’s hotel door for the sixth or seventh time in as many minutes, you throw your arms up in defeat and slump back against the wood, facing the dimply lit corner of the hall.

Except, you notice suddenly, it _isn’t_ _just_ the corner of the hall. Set a few feet back, in a nook somehow completely hidden from the dim reddish light of the hall lamp, you see a figure, standing upright. You panic and leap about a foot in the air before you realize that the figure is actually _you,_ reflected partially in the dark glass of a door.

You take a moment to recover from your near-fatal heart attack before you actually contemplate the significance of this. _A door_ , at the end of the hall, leading…where exactly? Next to you is a window, so you know that you are at the edge of the hotel, where could this door possibly even lead? Is it simply a design flaw? Some churches had defunct doors, back on earth, leading to passages or whole sections of the building which simply no longer existed, leaving the door hanging uselessly against the walls like a gravestone. 

You step over to the window and try to look forward along the edge of the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of an extension or…something—as though you could somehow miss an entire _other wing_ to the structure. 

Then again, you had missed this door, dim lighting wasn’t really a perfect excuse for that.

 _And I’m supposed to map this place_ , you think dismally, saying a brief prayer for any future hotel guest, lost forever behind some strange hidden door that never made it onto your sorry attempted map.

 _Well,_ if Charlie isn’t on the floor or in her room or in the lobby, she is either in the endless expanse of space known as the _higher floors_ , or behind this suspiciously poorly-lit door, and quite frankly you prefer to take your explorations of this hotel one floor at a time. Your sense of direction is impeccable, but you always seem to feel turned around when inside, like magnetic north ceased to exist within the hotel wall’s.

With a grunt, you get the door open, which creaks irritably on its hinges and resists you as best it can before finally forfeiting in one shuddering swing, sending your stumbling through it and out into the open air. You have a brief moment of certainty that this door leads _nowhere_ , and that you are about to fall two stories to the _ground_ , but instead a rough wooden floor rushes up to meet you. You land with a grunt, and then look up and realize that you are on some sort of expansive balcony, outside the hotel. Above you, the black sun hangs just off its axis, edging towards the afternoon, and then the red sky stretches to touch an ornate wrought iron fence which edges the balcony. 

_It’s beautiful_ , you think, if only because the whole scene is so unexpected.

“Uh, are you good?” Vaggie’s voice comes from your immediate left, making you jump. 

She and Charlie are set up at a low metal table, going through what appear to be more news articles. The exposed corner of a picture showing Charlie holding the blonde news anchor in a headlock tells you that the articles are about the disastrous interview, which explains the somewhat secluded location.

Charlie, already halfway to you, makes to help you up.

“Sorry, that door kind of sticks, I should probably put up a sign or something.” Charlie says, pulling you to your feet and retying the loosened knot in the front of your oversized button-up. 

“I’m fine, I was just, um, looking for you, I…” You trail off, trying to get your bearings. Charlie and Vaggie’s table is a few meters away from you, near an external wall and shaded by a striped cloth overhang in the same color scheme as the rest of the hotel.

This would be fine, except that the wall is _all the way_ over there where it _definitely_ shouldn’t be. You are struck with a wave of vertigo, immediately certain that the wall is way further from you than it ought to be, logically.

Confused, you step out of Charlie’s grasp and yank the door back open, sticking your head into the hallway. The wall extends into the hallway to the left of the door, just a few inches in front of you. Baffled, you back through the door and look the 5 or so meters from you to Vaggie, and then again into the hallway, trying to reconcile your internal sense of direction and space with the architecture. 

_Maybe its…not the same wall?_

The second floor is roughly laid out in a U shape, with the center being the stairwell, and then the high ceilinged lobby, which intrudes vertically into the second floor’s space. The wall of this hallway _should_ , as best as you can guess, lead straight to the lobby, as in, if you knocked it down you should be looking out over the lobby space. There shouldn’t be room for this random jump 15 feet to the interior of the hotel.

You glance at Charlie, who is giving you the same look she did when you were last bleeding out all over her carpeting, as though you are at risk of collapsing any second.

 _The lobby must be smaller than I thought_ , you decide, _or maybe I’m just confused_. Whatever it is, it must be some kind of failure of your internal sense of space. You do get sort of disoriented in the hotel a lot. Maybe you _really_ aren’t the right person for this map job.

“Sorry.” You start slowly, turning back to Charlie and a supremely uninterested Vaggie and trying to shake the strange sense of vertigo, “I just got a bit turned around there for a moment. Um, Charlie, I came to ask you for some help.”

Charlie visibly brightens at this, while Vaggie rolls her eyes an pushes her long hair out of her face with one hand. 

“Sure! How can I help?” Charlie looks thrilled at the concept, despite having no idea what it is that you are going to ask, and you find yourself irrationally hoping that she _can_ because an inability to help might actually be more disappointing to her than to you.

“Well, Alastor gave me my first assignment: he wants me to make a map of the hotel, for guests. He’s worried about people getting lost.”

“Getting lost?” Charlie echoes, looking perplexed.

“Um, yes. The hotel is very big, and the hallways aren’t well lit or straight, it’s easy to get lost on the way to a room.”

Charlie doesn’t seem to be following you, tilting her head to the side slightly.

“But the rooms are all numbered, that should make things easy enough, right?” 

You blink at Charlie, thinking of your own difficulties in navigation. Part of you, a big part of you, really wants to take her confusion and run with it, use it to get Alastor to rethink the whole massive undertaking, but another part of you is weirdly curious about Charlie’s confusion. It’s like the idea of getting lost in the hotel has never crossed her mind.

“Well, the numbering system isn’t completely consistent..” You trail off, Charlie continues to look completely blank.

 _Has she really not noticed how big this place is_? _Or that random rooms are missing altogether? Is this just me?_

 _No_ , you think, Alastor at least seems to think people might get lost, or pretends to anyways. Maybe Charlie is just…used to it?

“Charlie,” Vaggie’s voice chimes in, pulling her attention away from you.

Vaggie doesn’t look up, but motions Charlie over when she turns to her.

“Charlie remember what we talked about, when we first moved into the hotel?”

Charlie does not appear to remember.

“Uhhhhhh, something abouuuut,” Charlie looks around awkwardly, as if searching for inspiration.

“About how confusing this place is for me sometimes?” Vaggie continues patiently, looking at Charlie only.

“Oh, OH! Right, yeah, I remember.” Charlie nods her head, expression shifting to something like pleasant acceptance, you suspect that this conversation has happened more than once. 

“This is like that.” Vaggie says simply, patting Charlie on the arm and returning to her reading.

Charlie heads back to you with a bright smile, confusion nowhere to be seen.

“Ok, so a map for guests? I might have some old architectural stuff in the office from the last ad-on. I know I have the ship’s floor-plan around here somewhere,” Charlie puts a hand to her chin, looking thoughtfully out over the balcony, and then glances back to you, “Wait here, I’ll go grab some things and be right back!”

And then, before you know it, Charlie is gone and it’s just you and Vaggie on the strange balcony in the unpleasantly humid air of hell.

Confused, you shuffle over to Vaggie and sit down, she doesn’t bother looking up at you, which you decide is a marked improvement over her previous open hostility. 

_When did that change?_ You wonder to yourself.

“Um,” You try to formulate a question to ask just what all that was about, but Vaggie seems a step ahead of you.

“This place is weird as hell, I know, I got lost here all the goddamn time when we moved in, like I would swear I was right where our room should be and it just wasn’t there, or I would turn a corner and not know where I was. Shit like that.” She glances up at you briefly, and you nod, urging her to continue. “Never happens to Charlie though. I guess because she grew up here, partially, maybe she’s used to it, but she just doesn’t get it.”

Vaggie sets the paper she’s reading down flat, and gestures to you absently.

“Hand me that highlighter,” You pass her the marker and wait for her to continue. “I tried explaining it to her, but it’s like talking to a brick wall, that shit literally _never_ happens when she’s around. Which is extra insane because her sense of direction is normally complete crap.”

Vaggie tosses the highlighter back to you and grabs a pen off the table, making a note in the margin of the article.

“Eventually I just told her that it was a ‘me’ problem and that she might need to come find me if I got lost, which happened a ton and was a huge pain in the ass. But I guess I figured it out or something because it doesn’t happen anymore. This place is freaky like that, but you get used to it. _Eso si que es._ ” Vaggie shrugs and tosses the article on a pile of other highlighted segments, seeming nonplussed.

“So a map, huh?”

You nod, sensing that Vaggie is in control of the conversation.

“Probably a good idea, but a bitch of a project.”

 _True enough_ , you think, but manage to muster an only mostly insincere smile and a small shrug. Vaggie looks mainly disinterested, but maybe, possibly, a little sympathetic? You could just be imagining that in the hazy afternoon light, but it is somewhat comforting nonetheless.

“Just, watch out for the boat. That shit is like a bad carnival ride.” Vaggie laughs dryly and your comfort immediately evaporates, but before you can ask her what exactly that _means_ , Charlie rockets back through the door, her arms overflowing with papers, and distracts you both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra upload! Yay!  
> TRANSLATIONS BEFORE I FORGET:  
> “Eso si que es”, according to my friend who used to say this a lot in high school, is basically “it is what it is” or, I guess, “it do be like that.” (if that is something anyone but my friends say, honestly I have no idea). I don’t think it translates literally, but that’s the gist of it.  
> Also, have any of you guys read “House of Leaves?” because that is the vibe I’m feeling with the Hotel! The construction is just so wacky, even just from what little we have seen, I can’t imagine things are 100% wholesome in the physics category in there. At the very least it would be pretty confusing for guests. Personally, I would appreciate a map myself.  
> Also, I would love input on the section where our angel is confused about the placement of the wall. Did that work for you guys, or make sense spatially/emotionally. I was simply trying to convey that the wall isn’t where she expects it to be, and that logically it doesn’t make sense with her internal Hotel map. Did that come across? I reworked it quite a few times to try and make it clear, but I have trouble writing physical spaces in text, because I have, like, a distinct image in my brain rather than just words, and that can be harder to translate. Feedback is appreciated!  
> Anyways, see you all on Friday for some more Radio Demon shenanigans and fuzzy Husk feels (because I really love Husk, he is such a sweetie and no one can change my image of him as such)  
> <3


	31. The Great Puzzle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the slight delay on this one, had some technical difficulties. Thanks for the patience and here ya go! 
> 
> In this chapter, Charlie lends you some help as you plan your battle strategy...

Chapter 28: The Great Puzzle

* * *

Without preamble, Charlie divests herself of the pile of documents, completely covering the scattered newspapers already on the table. The heap doesn’t seem to have any obvious organization, and instead appears to be a random jumble of drawings, partial schematics, and even a few cardboard tubes containing who-knows-what.

You glance up at Charlie, who looks very pleased with herself, and gesture vaguely to the chaos in front of you hoping for some kind of direction. Vaggie, whose own reading material has been swallowed up by the new deluge, just leans back in her chair and watches Charlie with a small smile. 

Charlie doesn’t seem to grasp your confusion, and instead motions for you to look through the papers. Feeling overwhelmed, you sift through the few closest to you and try to make sense of what you’re looking at. 

You are drawn to what you realize is a grainy black-and-white photograph of what appears to be a very old, much smaller version of the Hotel. The upper floors are gone completely, unbuilt, only the bottom few are there. The “Happy Hotel” sign is nowhere to be seen, nor is the trademark sunken ship. You spot, on one side, what you think is the balcony you are currently sitting on, which makes you feel marginally better about the placement of that particular feature, which seems to make spatial sense from afar, at least.

 _Not all that helpful_ , you think, _but interesting_.

Tiny, and in the foreground, is a little knot of people, one tall, one short, and a third in the arms of the first. You squint, trying to make out the faces, before you realize that this must be Charlie’s family, pictured from very far away to capture the entire building behind them. You smile vaguely, and set the photo aside.

Below the picture is a sketch, what looks like a plan for a tower. You recall seeing a tower, extending crookedly from the top of the hotel, but the details in the sketch give you some pause. There seems to be two separate floors, stuck on top of what looks like a giant carousel. You hope, vaguely, that the carousel design is just that, a design, and that there aren’t real _working_ carnival rides attached to this building, which you have no idea how to map or generally what to do with. 

Idly, you pick up one of the cardboard tubes and pop off the plastic seal. Inside are blueprints, which you unroll unevenly atop the crowded table. The blueprints seem to be for the ground floor, you recognize the cross section of one ornate wall, and the general floor plan. 

_Thank Michael_. At least parts of the hotel are already mapped for you, all you have to do is double check the accuracy and that’s it. You set the blueprints aside for later use.

“This is perfect, thank you Charlie,” You say earnestly, looking up at the taller demon with a smile. Charlie seems pleased, and drags a metal chair around to sit next to you and picks up the old picture.

“I didn’t know what you would need so I pretty much just grabbed everything from my Dad’s old office. This place used to be a vacation home for my parents, back in the day. I remember coming here sometimes, as a kid.”

Charlie looks at the photo with a wistful smile, and you can’t help but smile with her. Humans always have such strong attachments to place, locations hold such significance to them. You hadn’t really understood the sentiment before your time on earth, and even then you had looked on with a certain degree of alien distance, unable to fully empathize. You feel, however, a sense of second-hand nostalgia for Charlie, using a childhood location to fulfill her adult ambitions. It’s poetic, in a way. 

“You should keep that picture,” You say, the words almost surprising you, “I don’t need it for the map, I mean. Maybe you could frame it?” You trail off, unsure, but wanting to say something, feeling like you should. 

Charlie looks up at you for a moment, and then grins again, wider than before.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.” She says, and sets the picture aside, “but right now we should be sorting through all this!”

The task seems to refocus Charlie and, despite your misgivings, her enthusiasm for the work is contagious. She has a limitless amount of energy, even for these more mundane tasks, and she chatters endlessly as she works. Even Vaggie is infected with Charlie’s mood, and starts sorting through the stray documents on her end, albeit with the kind of detached nonchalance that only she seems to be able to pull off.

The documents, roughly, fall into three categories. The vast bulk of the pile is unrelated fragments like partially drafted contracts, playbills for what Charlie tells you are her mother’s concert performances, and sketches for add-on’s that either didn’t make it to the hotel, or are meant for a different building entirely. Charlie explains that her father owns a _lot_ of property, and you try not to think about who her father _is_ and how much the increasingly grand descriptions of his wealth and influence frighten you.

The pile also contains a fair number of old pictures and news clippings about the building or the Magne—Charlie’s surname—family as a whole. While interesting, and frequently prompting Charlie to launch into colorful stories about her family, they don’t really offer much in the way of help. 

You are somewhat interested by the fact that the hotel started as a family vacation home for Charlie, before being converted later into a hotel. You aren’t very clear on when or how the transition occurred, or if Charlie was even the one to facilitate the switch or merely took advantage of the available space, but you are beginning to see what Vaggie mentioned about Charlie being “used” to the strange space, as she seems to have spent a _lot_ of time here even before starting her rehabilitation project.

By far the smallest portion of the pile, a precious few pieces of gold sifted out from piles of tailings, are useful schematics and plans. There are a few sketches, mostly done from the outside, of relevant and interesting features. Aside from the obviously ridiculous vertical ship that seems to have been wedged wholesale into the side of the building, you count two separate towers, one on the second floor and one near the top floor, an entire train engine complete with mangled train tracks, and what Charlie identifies as the façade of her father’s former favorite Chinese food restaurant.

“It still kinda smells like wontons in there,” She shrugs, and you don’t ask what exactly happened to make the restaurant fall out of Lucifer’s good graces, or why he decided to stick the entire structure on this building like a schizophrenic mosaicist. 

By the time the entire pile is sorted, the sun has sunk much lower in the sky, and the general red glow has darkened to a low firelight, but you have gained a half dozen preciously important documents. The crown jewel of your search is, of course, a map of the ground floor, which tells you that beyond the lobby and kitchen, there is a second room that Charlie merely refers to as storage, and a vast, empty space labelled “ballroom.”

You mentally cross the first floor off your list of places to inspect, although Charlie doesn’t seem willing or able to give you an exact number of floors in the hotel, so you can’t accurately measure your progress. Still, you feel that you _are_ making progress. 

Just as you piling up the superfluous documents for Charlie to move back to the office, a rapid knock comes at the door before it flies open with not so much as a squeak.

Niffty skips into the room, apparently having _no_ trouble opening the door, which leaves you with a strange feeling of inadequacy and a fresh wave of distaste for your small form.

“Oh, there you guys are, I just came to tell you that— _oh my gosh”_ Niffty’s eye is darting around the room, not seeming to stop on any one of you, before she spots the discarded sheafs of newspaper scattered across the floor around the table.

 _I didn’t even notice that we made such a mess_ , you think.

Niffty’s single pupil dilates and she cuts herself off mid-sentence to dart over and start manically sweeping papers into her arms, almost faster than you can follow.

“Nope, nope, nope, this is no good at all,” She mutters to herself, darting around and in between Charlie and Vaggie’s legs, who for their part, look on in vaguely confused amusement. Trying to help, you kneel down and pick up the half dozen papers nearest to you, shuffling them into a messy pile with one arm. You take a halting knee-step towards a paper just out of your reach, and extend a hand towards it when you here a startled gasp from just in front of you. 

Niffty is there, reaching for the same paper, her precarious but obsessively neat pile of newspaper teetering on one forearm. When you look at her, her already rosy cheeks flush to a deep fuchsia, her eye darts away from you, and her hand retracts like a rubber band.

 _She can’t even look me in the eye_ , you think, a little hurt. You wonder if you somehow offended this little demon, although you don’t think you have ever actually spoken with her. You did pick her up to move her out of the way of that chunk of debris the other day, maybe that was rude?

 _But she picked me up just before that_.

Unsure, you offer Niffty the brightest smile you can muster, and grab the abandoned article, before offering her your entire stack.

“Thank you for helping us clean up.” You try, waiting for her to take the offered papers from you.

Niffty’s round eye looks everywhere but at your face, and her hand darts out like a viper to grab the stack.

“It’s no trouble.” She squeaks, voice impossibly high.

“Do you like to clean?” You ask, trying to pull her eye contact.

Niffty nods so fast you feel a pang of concern for her brain, and darts a tiny, fervent glance at you.

“Yeah I love it. I hate mess.” She shifts uncomfortably from foot to tiny foot, poodle skirt swishing around her calves. Even with you kneeling, you are still taller than her, and she does her best to keep her face turned down, hiding her furious blush.

 _Is she…embarrassed?_ You wonder, trying to read her reactions.

Behind you, there is a stifled giggle and then a muffled _thump_ and Vaggie’s strangled “Ow!”

You turn slightly, and see Charlie and Vaggie practically looming over you. Vaggie is rubbing one arm, where it appears Charlie has elbowed her. Charlie is giving Niffty a run for her money with her own bright blush, partially hidden by the hand she has pressed into her mouth. 

Startled by their proximity, you stare for a moment, before Charlie waves you on.

“No, don’t mind us, keep going!” She hisses, grinning behind her hand. Vaggie snorts out another laugh, now smartly out of range of Charlie’s elbow.

“Um,” You try, feeling very adrift in this situation, a sensation with which you are rapidly familiarizing in hell. You only seem to be able to keep up with the demons half the time, and even then it’s mostly guesswork.

“Anyways!” Niffty’s squeaking voice pulls your attention, and you turn to see that she has moved to the other end of the balcony, opened the door, and hidden herself partially behind it, so that only her single eye and the curl of her pink-orange bob are visible. You suppress your laugh at the image, wary of offending the little demon.

“I just came to tell you guys that Al is starting dinner so you should all comedownsoonthatsall—” Niffty’s words run together at the end, trailing out behind her like a wake and cutting off abruptly when she slams the door. You can faintly hear her rapid footsteps disappear down the hall, and then she’s gone.

Confused, and a little disoriented, you push yourself up from the floor and turn to Charlie and Vaggie.

“What was that?” You ask, gesturing helplessly towards the door.

Vaggie gapes at you, looking somewhat aghast.

“Are you serious? Come on its obvious that she has a huge cr—” Charlie, taking advantage of Vaggie’s distraction, steps in and elbows the other woman again.

“A HUGE CRAMP!” she cuts in, “she probably has a huge cramp, you know, from cleaning, that’s why she was so stiff.” And then, leaning in to Vaggie, she hisses “Don’t tell her, its way cuter this way.”

You look between the two, feeling like you are missing a large amount of subtext here.

Vaggie rubs her arm sullenly, looking at Charlie.

“Alright fine, just keep your elbows to yourself, those things are sharp.”

“Awww, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.” Charlie grins and plants a kiss on Vaggie’s cheek, making her blush her own shade of purple, and then turns her attention to you.

“We’re gonna head downstairs, see you at dinner?”

You glance between the two, back towards the door where Niffty disappeared, and make a conscious decision to just write this whole episode off and move on.

“Yes, that’s fine. I want to look through the blueprints some more.” You say slowly. 

Charlie just gives you another dazzling grin, scoops up the pile of reject documents, and leads a still-blushing Vaggie off by the hand, shutting the door behind them with a decisive _click_.

You stand there for a minute, staring after them, before shaking your head with a sigh.

“Demons” You say aloud, and then turn back to the table.

…

Charlie left you with a notebook, and you make short work of cataloguing your resources. You decide to develop something resembling a plan of attack, hoping that maybe, if reduced to a checklist, this task might be marginally easier to manage. 

_Utilize battle planning when dealing with large groups of demons. They may be powerful in hordes, but they are unintelligent and easily outmaneuvered. Defer to your leadership and move systematically to avoid complications._

Angel battle planning, of course. Everyone was constantly prepped for the eventuality of another war with the demons, a refresher course you were required to take every decade. You are severely questioning the veracity of the “ _unintelligent_ ” claim in particular, but you nonetheless feel an instinctual sense of security from resorting to basic training to deal with issues.

 _At least I can outmaneuver a building_ , you think, then, after a moment, _probably_.

You make a list of your materials on the first page of the notebook, trying to parse the information down into its simplest form. You are decently sure that you _can_ write in English, but decide that if no one will be reading these notes but you, you can afford to stay in your comfort zone. Angel’s don’t have a written language per-say, although you are aware that there was a Primordial language prior to the first prophets that is still used scatteringly across heavenly writings. Generally any written strictures are done using Latin. Your reports on Earth had all been in the local languages, which was standard, so you have some experience in writing, but you find that archaic Latin, with the occasional insert of Primordial, is much more natural.

You suppose that the notes would be mostly unreadable to anyone else.

_Documents:_

_5 sketches of hotel features_

  * _Tower (lower)_
  * _Tower (upper)_
  * _Locomotive_
  * _Restaurant façade_
  * _Ship_



_Blueprints_

  * _Ground floor_
  * _Ship interior_



You chew on the back of your pencil, running the smooth wood over your still unfamiliarly sharp canines, and try to come up with a battle plan. The ground floor seems the easiest to tackle, so you decide to take that level first.

 _Better to start somewhere manageable_ , you decide, _and then move up_.

Knock out the low-level enemies first.

You are fairly familiar with the second floor, seeing as you live on it, but mapping it will likely still be difficult, given that you only discovered this balcony a few hours ago. Who knows what other quirks and surprises await you even just on this floor. You also have a sinking feeling that the confusing nature of the hotel will worsen as you ascend, a hunch you can’t quite place except that you find the ground floor much more logically organized than the second floor. Following that trend, you don’t want to think about what awaits you higher up.

 _Vaggie said that Charlie had to come find her more than once_ , you wince, hoping that you won’t end up stuck in some back corner of one of the hotel’s twisting hallways.

 _Positive attitude_ , you remind yourself, and try to channel some of Charlie’s energy.

So your plan is, then, to map the lobby first, then move up from there. You also decide to just draw sketches first, maybe with some rough measurements. If you have a general sense for the layout, the hotel will be easier to navigate, and you can get the more specific details later.

By the time you look up from your planning, you have filled nearly three back-to-back pages in your notebook with sketches and a growing to-do list. Your hand is starting to cramp uncomfortably, and when you look up, you realize that the hazy red firelight is coming from a lamp overhead, not the sun, which has sunk entirely.

 _What time is it?_ You wonder, stretching out and popping your back. Your wings protest their cramped position, and your shoulders ache slightly from how you were sitting. Sighing, you stack up your notebook and precious few documents and head back towards your room. The door gives you even more trouble this time, resisting your pull before suddenly coming loose and nearly smacking you in the face before you can stop it with one taloned foot.

The hallway is dimply lit, and you worry that it may be much later than you thought, so you hurry towards your room to drop off your things. You listen for a moment, but you don’t hear any dinner sounds. 

_I might have missed dinner_ , you think with a pang of disappointment and a new uncomfortable pinch that you recognize as hunger. On the bright side, if dinner is over, that means that Alastor is probably _not_ in the kitchen, which means you can raid the fridge—which Alastor had complainingly moved back into its proper place—in peace. 

You hurry down the stairs, and confirm that the lobby is, in fact, dead to rights. The lights are off, and the table is empty, although that ever-present sensation of being watched, compounded by the eyeball motif, is as strong as ever. You find yourself compelled to be sneaky, trying not to let your talons click against the hardwood as you head for the kitchen.

You pause at the door, hand stopped before opening it, your senses prickling.

 _Was that a noise?_ You strain to listen, trying to decide if the shifting you had heard was just your imagination. This place can be creepy, and you wouldn’t put it past your tired brain to conjure an image of the Radio Demon lurking in the shadows.

There is a rustling noise again, and then a soft _click_ , like a cabinet closing.

Part of you is sure that the noise is Alastor, jealously guarding his kitchen even in the middle of the night, as ridiculous as you know that idea is. Logically, it’s probably just someone like you, up late and looking for a snack.

Then there’s a clinking noise, like metal on metal, and you tense up involuntarily. Without visuals, your brain conjures the image of Valliant weapons, chiming together in the armory. You try to banish the image, but it’s sticky, gripping the edges of your mind and raising your hackles in involuntary alarm.

 _It’s just Charlie or someone else._ You tell yourself, but your muscles don’t relax. You imagine that you can feel the soul on the other side of the door, guilty and sneaking around, plotting some kind of mischief, some kind of violence.

 _Just open the door and look, you’ll see that it’s someone you know, and then you’ll calm down_. You try to reason with yourself.

Another soft clink, and then several more. 

Your mind says _weapons_ , and you tell your mind to _stop it._

Sucking in a quiet breath, you put one hand on the door and open it slowly. Once you touch the door, the noises stop, and you open it to silence, drenched in inky darkness. Without windows, the kitchen doesn’t benefit from the constant reddish glow of the nighttime sky, and edges towards pitch black. You can feel your pupils dilating to compensate. Your night vision is excellent, you can even see in ultraviolet, although that particular skill doesn’t help much here, and you only manage a dull, desaturated impression of the space.

You step through the door, senses on high alert, _certain_ that someone had been in here a moment before. You move carefully towards the cabinets at the back of the room, listening intently.

 _Maybe I really am just imagining Alastor_ , you wonder, feeling distinctly like a young angel again, convinced that Lucifer was lurking just under your bed.

Then, almost inaudibly, there’s a noise behind you and your senses _scream_ that there is _someone_ just over your shoulder and they are _reaching out a hand to grab you_.

Purely on instinct, you spin around and grab the wrist extending out to where you had just been, yanking it past you and planting your other hand on the creatures shoulder. With one fluid jerk, you pull the arm backwards, stressing the joint to the threat of failure and forcing your assailant onto their knees, arm pinned.

The creature makes a strangled yowling sound, like stepping on a cat’s tail, and then unleashes a stream of profanity.

“What the hell is wrong with you, ‘ya daffy cunt? Fuckin’ _shit_ that fuckin’ hurts, let go of my goddamn arm!”

 _Husker_ , you realize, and release him with a startled little gasp.

Husk drops to the ground with a muffled thud, rubbing his sore shoulder with the opposite hand and shooting you a murderous glare.

You jump forward to try and help him up, but he wards you off with flattened ears and a low growl.

“What the hell is your problem asshole? Are ‘ya _trying_ to tear my fuckin’ arm off?”

“Husk! Husker, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I-I had no idea it was you I thought it was some random demon or Alastor creeping up on me or—I don’t know what I thought, I’m so sorry, are you alright? I’m sorry.” Your thoughts come out jumbled while your hands flutter uselessly, you aren’t sure half of what you said made any sense. That had been _Husk_ the whole time, and not only did you _not know_ you nearly _decapitated_ him just because you can’t reign in your stupid instincts. You think maybe you’re hyperventilating.

Husker fixes you with a strange look, and rotates his shoulder like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, which makes you feel worse. 

“Can I—Are you ok?” You make another move towards him, trying to assess the damage, but he swats you away with one clawed hand.

“I’m fine, fucking Christ. I’m the one who just got attacked so take it down a fuckin notch or two, kid.” You wring your hands nervously, trying to judge if his shoulder is really damaged from a distance. He _seems_ okay, which is good, but you have no idea how strong you are in comparison with him. You hear a low, concerned whining sound, and realize its coming from you. You clap a hand over your mouth with a muffled “sorry.”

Husker sighs, and looks up at the ceiling theatrically as though asking God “why me?” which nearly makes you laugh in spite of your distress. After a moment, he struggles to his feet with a muffled grunt that sounds something like “Fucking brainless bitch.” 

Standing, Husk swings his arm experimentally and seems satisfied, before fixing you with a pointed glare. You wilt under the pressure.

“I was just making a fuckin’ _drink_ kid, not a damn pipe bomb, you’re jumpy as hell.”

“I know, I’m sorr—” you start, but Husk cuts you off.

“Quit apologizing its fuckin’ weird, I get it, God damn.” Husker squints at you, leaning forward slightly, “Did you really think I was the radio asshole? You were gonna do _that_ to the radio asshole?”

You just shrug, because honestly, you have no idea. You acted purely on reflex, you aren’t confident you would have made the distinction between “threat” and “Alastor.” You aren’t confident there _is_ a distinction, except that one is significantly more likely to disembowel you, provocation or no. 

“You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know that?” Husk shoulders past you and grabs a metal contraption off the counter, taking the cork out of a nearby bottle with his teeth and pouring some in. He sets the bottle down and opens the next cabinet, adding something else, and then sealing the container and shaking it in one hand.

You wonder why he had stopped mixing his drink when you walked in. _Maybe he also thought Alastor was lurking in the shadows._

“Completely goddamn nuts, walking into a kitchen in the middle of the goddamn night with _no witnesses_ and picking fights with the fucking radio asshole.” Husk pours the concoction into a glass, also on the counter and already filled with ice, with a soft _clink_.

 _That explains the sound I heard_ , you think, feeling a blush rising up on your face and thanking your lucky stars for the darkness of the room. 

“That is how you end up never heard from again, you want that?” You shake your head, not entirely following the tirade, but trying to give the right answers anyway.

“That crazy fucker would be picking you out of his teeth.” Husker drinks deeply from the glass, squints at it, then adds more liquor from the open bottle.

“And after you picked a fight with him today. Holy shit kid, you’re either crazy or brave or just plain fuckin’ stupid.” Husker eyes the bottle critically, then takes a long pull before corking it and returning it to the shelf. He puts his drink down with a sigh, and runs a clawed hand over his face.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” You ask quietly.

Husk looks at you from under his hand, one eye glowing strangely in the semi darkness.

“I told ‘ya im fine kid, for fucks sake, let it go.”

 _What is it with demon’s and not accepting apologies?_ You wonder briefly.

“Look, kid” Husker leans against the counter like he’s suddenly too tired to stand, “you seem nice and all, but you need to watch yourself. Nice kids like you don’t last too long down here, and that radio shitface will chew you up and _not_ spit you out if you know what I mean.”

You think about Alastor’s hungry grin, the way the light reflects off his jagged teeth, the way he leans into you like he can _smell_ your blood pumping just below the surface, and you think you know _exactly_ what Husk means.

“I like watching you fuck with him just as much as the next guy, trust me. Today, that was badass kid, but you should stop if you know what’s good for you. Roll over. He’ll get bored, he’ll back off, trust me.” Husk takes another swig of his drink and stares into the glass. 

_Is that what you did?_ You wonder, to yourself. Did Husk roll over? He has this way about him, this familiar aura of someone who has been burned one too many times, someone who gets stepped on and just moves out of the way. You saw a lot of humans like that, most of them ended up here too. And you don’t _know_ , you don’t _really_ know this demon, but you get the sense that even his giving you this advice is exhausting him, more so even than you nearly breaking his arm in two.

Husk seems beaten down, somehow, nearly defeated, but he is clearly _trying_ to help you, that means something.

 _And he’s right._ You _should_ just roll over to the Radio Demon, wait for him to lose interest and find a new toy. 

_But…_

But what if that new toy is Charlie? He already seems so interested in her.

And what if he _doesn’t_ lose interest. Husk may think that you can just quietly fade from Alastor’s attention, and you yourself even hope that it would be that simple, but you _know_ Alastor’s breed. Once they fixate, they don’t let go, they don’t drop a toy until _they_ decide to. Alastor is like Michael, once he decides he wants to play, rolling over won’t be enough.

And you won’t roll over again.

Husk swirls his drink, staring into the slowly melting ice. 

You reach out with one hand, like Husk is a wild animal you don’t want to spook, and lay your fingertips lightly on his forearm. Husk looks at your hand like it’s some kind of venomous snake, about to strike, and then looks up at you, confusion obvious.

“I’m sorry about your shoulder Husk. And thank you” You say, and smile.

And you leave it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Phew, this one was long! My internet would not let me post this last night, but it seems to be back and functioning today, so here is your dose of Hazbin.  
> I REALLY love writing Husk and Niffty, they are jockeying with Angel for my favorite character to write. Husk has such fun surly dialogue, and Niffty has this great energy to her, it’s really a fantastic time with those two. Like, I swear there will be Alastor fluff eventually, but until then I fully plan to fluff-it-up with all the side characters!  
> Anyways, next chapter is going to be a fun one, we get some out-of-hotel time, and some much needed Angel, so stay tuned for that. I saw some questions about MC naming so, as an update, I have decided that YES our angel will be getting a name. I have a preliminary scene already written, it’s just a matter of slotting it into the story, but that will be coming up before the end of part 2 :) I want to thank you all for the input, and for all of the lovely comments I have been getting, you all are the lifeblood of this fic <3  
> See you all Monday (assuming my router decides to join us)!


	32. Consider Anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ATTENTION: there is a special announcement in the NOTES section of this chapter, so be sure to check that out!
> 
> In this chapter, you have a strange sort of a morning...

Chapter 29: Consider Anything

* * *

You’re standing in a crowd. It’s cold, very cold, and everyone is bundled in thick jackets and wraps. A woman moves past you, just barely missing your robe, draped in a thick fur stole.

You have somewhere to be, urgently, somewhere you need to go. They are expecting you, they need you, they can’t make it without you.

You try to push through the crowd, but it doesn’t want to part. People don’t bump into you, they never do, but they swarm in around so that you have no room to walk, no room to fly.

You try to reach out and push a human out of the way, but they step out of your grasp without a thought, like air through your feathers, untouchable.

You try to step into the crowd, you know that you need to move, but there is no space to step, the humans crush in on you, faceless in their tightly wrapped layers, heads down against the chill of the wind. 

You _need_ to leave this place, to be where you are expected, where you are _needed_.

You open your mouth to scream, but your voice is quiet, plaintive, the voice of the 4th choir, the voice of a Dominion, always soft, always calm.

The first tear tracks a line of cold down your check, frosting into a single pearled droplet on your face

Always silent.

You feel something knock against your hip, you turn slightly to compensate. A young human, a girl with long brown hair in a dirty coat over a thin tank top. She stands out, her clothes don’t match the others, both in their pathetic state of disrepair and in their style. Out of time, almost, out of place among the trench coats and top hats and fur. 

When she bumps into you, she pauses, blinking, looking at your hip, just barely above her eye level. Slowly her gaze travels up, high above her head, up your waist, to your broad shoulders and raised, snowy wings, up into your eyes. 

There’s a moment, a moment of contact, a moment where it’s just you and her and the soft winter wind in your wings, a moment where she can see _you_. The tear on your face, thawed slightly by your skin, slips away from you and makes a crystalline sound as it falls all the way to the concrete.

It’s quiet, serene.

And then she is screaming. Terrified and screaming so wide that her contorted mouth seems to split her gaunt face in half, rend her whole being in two as she scrambles to get away from you, backpedaling across the cobblestones and into the crowd to which she cannot belong. You stretch out one hand towards her, so big you could wrap it around her head, lift her up like a doll. She is tiny to you, tiny and scared. She runs like prey.

And then the others start to see, as though the sound of her scream drags them bodily out from their haze, lights you up like a torch in their awareness, and suddenly they can _all see you_ , and they are _all_ screaming.

There are no words, just mindless animal shrieking as the whole crowd flinches from your giant form as one, cringing back in a single terrifies mass. People fall, fur coats are trampled against the frozen stones of the street, men and women claw at each other to try and escape your gaze.

You spin, looking for an exit, but even as the crowd roils in its efforts to escape from you, it remains a single inescapable mass, walling you off like a cyst, trapped in the center of the horrified panic. You try to fly, flapping your wings, but your feathers are falling, molting out and fluttering to the ground like snow. Your halo constricts on your head, like thorns, pricking your scalp, running rivulets of blood down your face and through your hair.

One word filters through the undifferentiated chaos, a single gasping scream, a pleading identification, working _Kabballah_ , creating you as it is spoken.

_Demon_ , the humans cry, crawling over each other in a tortured web, screaming as though burned by your mere presence, lit up from below by the flames of hell.

There’s a pulsing throb in your ears, a knocking drum-like beat.

You try to tell them that you aren’t a demon, that you are an angel, a savior, that they have no cause to fear you, but your voice comes out as a broken, guttural snarl.

You reach out a hand, trying to calm the mass, but your fingers are gnarled and blackened, your nails grown long. 

The beat grows, pounding in your skull in time you your hammering heartbeat. 

You bring your wings forward, to hide yourself, but they are blackened and skeletal, not your own, but sharpened bat wings, ending at each point in a wicked claw.

The knocking is so loud, mingling with the screams, you cover your ears to try and stifle it but it is as though it is coming from within your skull, beating against your bone. 

You are not yourself, you are warped, corrupted, besmirched. 

You are what you have always been.

A monster to them.

And they can see that now.

…

You crack open one eye to striped maroon ceiling of your hotel room. Your neck hurts, you it takes you a moment to realize it’s because you are laying upside-down on you bed with your head against the baseboard.

Groaning, you push yourself up, rubbing your neck idly. You take stock of your blankets, shoved off one side of the bed, and pajamas, shirt tucked up and over one wing, exposing your chest and twisting your limb awkwardly. Your holy robe, which you brought to bed with you last night in a fit of nostalgia, is wrapped around one foot tenaciously, like a shackle.

And that knocking, you can still hear it. You think for a moment that you are having some new kind of headache involving sound instead of pain, but realize that it’s actually someone knocking persistently at your door.

You spring up, careful not to puncture the exposed mattress with your talons, kick off your robe and jump off the bed and onto all fours, trying to wrestle your shirt down with the joint in your wing. You pull the hem the rest of the way, extending your wings down and behind you, feeling the uncomfortable stretch in your tendons from their long confinement the day before, and scramble to the door, yanking it open with one hand.

Charlie stands there, arm still raised to knock, and smiles brightly at you. 

“Hey, there you are! I was starting to worry that you fell asleep on the balcony last night, my arm was getting tired.”

You sigh when you see her and let your wings relax, pushing out the edges of your shirt awkwardly, and smile.

“Hi, what brings you by?” You say, bringing one wing forward to massage the stiff joint.

“Do you still want to go shopping?” She asks, shrugging a shoulder bag into a more comfortable and visible position and tilting her head at you.

“Shopping?” You don’t quite follow, had you said you wanted to go shopping?

“Yeah, for new clothes, not that you don’t look great in pajamas but, you could probably do with something a little less...”

You glance down at the oversized shirt, which says “Daddy’s Little Princess” in big letters and cringe slightly. Charlie has said that all the clothes she lent you were yours to keep, which was generous, but you can tell that they are mostly things she didn’t want to keep herself. 

And she had offered to take you shopping before the extermination, you had completely forgotten about it in all the chaos of the last few days. 

_Has it really only been a few days?_

You glance back up at Charlie, who you only now realize is dressed casually rather than in her normal button down and bowtie, and nod sheepishly.

“Great, well come on let’s get going! Get dressed!” Charlie bounces slightly on the balls of her feet, looking expectant.

“Um,” You look at the room behind you, a scatter of blankets and pillows, and spot your discarded clothes from yesterday, next to your single other pair of pajamas. 

_Do I need to dress up to go shopping?_ Charlie had just urged you to get dressed, so maybe it doesn’t matter?

You shrug and tell Charlie that you’ll meet her downstairs in a few minutes, and watch her scurry off down the hall towards the staircase.

You rush through your newly minted morning routine, and say a small apology to your wings as you wrap them around your ribs, feeling their soreness, and lace them into the frilly corset Angel lent you. You’ve mostly figured out how to push them down far enough to be invisible under your breasts, and you take a moment to admire your disguise. If you turn, you can see the juncture between your wings and back, but from the front, you think you look like any other demon.

_Any other mostly naked demon_ , at least. 

You haven’t really spared any through for your new body below the waist, and frankly, while the new hair is strange and unfamiliar, you honestly appreciate the coverage, finding the whole situation easier to ignore, or at least procrastinate, when you can’t _see_ it. 

In the spirit of that thought, you meander back towards your bedroom and sort through your small pile of clothes. In the end, you settle for the dark elastic pants you wore yesterday, and a clean, if wrinkly, T-shirt—Thankfully one without any writing on it.

You struggle with tying the shirt into a knot on one side, trying to hide the excessive length, fumbling it and opening the door with an elbow. 

Awkwardly, you sidle into the hallway, shutting the door with a foot. You can’t seem to get the length right, so you keep untying and retrying the corner of the shirt. 

Backing up, you bump into something solid with your shoulder, jostling your wing awkwardly under the corset. You plant a hand on your rib, trying to massage your limb into a more comfortable position, glance up at whatever it is that you had bumped into, and immediately freeze.

Towering above you, and looking brutally smug, stands the Radio Demon. Immediately, you notice the static washing over your skin, vibrating your pin feathers and making your hair stand on end. 

_How had you not noticed that before_ , you berate yourself as you take a halting step backwards, and bump back into the door of your room. 

Alastor matches you step for step, boxing you into the doorframe and blocking any possible path of exit. You arch your back, trying to keep your face away from him, and press your palms flat to the door, fumbling with for the handle. 

“You’re late.” He hums, examining the red nails on one hand, not looking at you.

“Late?” You squeak, distracted by the way his nails catch the hall light and trying to decide if such a thing can be considered threatening. 

“For work.” He replies simply, looking down at you over his hand at you.

“Work?” Your hand finds the handle of your door and twists. It’s locked, of course. You fumble in your waistband for your key, eyes darting up and down the hallway, hoping that Charlie, or _anyone_ would come and save you.

“Really, darling, is there nothing in that pretty little head of yours, or do you just enjoy repeating everything I say?” Alastor brings one hand out from behind his back, microphone in his grip, and raps the head of the thing on the wall, just inches from your face. It takes a very concerted effort not to flinch. 

“It’s nearly ten o’clcok dear, where _have_ you been. I had briefly hoped that you were the diligent type after you worked through supper last night, but apparently I was sadly mistaken.”

Alastor clasps his free hand to his chest and sighs dramatically, as though your presumed tardiness literally pains him.

“Ordinarily, of course, I would never approve of skipping a meal, you are so thin as it is dear, but I really had held some hope for you.”

You fumble the key into your sweat-slick palm and finger-walk your way back to the lock, trying to work it into place. 

“But then, late for work in the morning. _Tsk_ ,” He clicks his tongue disapprovingly, “Darling, you should know that I do _so_ hate to be kept waiting.”

You manage to get the key into its place, turning it slowly until you feel the lock _click_. Your hand is on the doorhandle, about to free you from this lunatic, and then suddenly, it’s not, Alastor has your wrist gripped in one slender hand, squeezing hard enough to make your nerves buzz. He yanks your hand up, flipping it over and flexing it back with one thumb to inspect your wrist. He produces your room key in his other hand, looks at you disapprovingly, and then uses it to trace a single pale vein up your forearm.

You blanch, eyes locking onto the motion, not breathing.

With his hand on you, you can _feel_ this horrible, overwhelming wave of _intention_ seeping out of him like branching frost. You can’t even place the emotion, the thought, even what the intention itself _is_ , it’s like dark water, borderless and opaque. You can’t get the measure of it, just the dark, formless, _enormity_ of the thing. 

“I hate to be kept waiting _almost_ as much as I hate being ignored. And I do believe,” He glances up at you briefly, nails pressing softly but dangerously into your flesh, “That I said that to you before. Oh, that’s one more thing I detest, _repeating myself_.” He squeezes your wrist to emphasize his words, and you feel your bones flex grotesquely. You suck in a sharp breath through your teeth and your gaze zeroes in on his hand. 

_He’s hurting me_ , your instincts scream straight up your spine, and you feel the muscles of your arm bunch dangerously. You can feel his joy, putrid and sickly, inside of all that horrible black… _something_.

_Run,_ your instincts say, _get away, he’s going to hurt you_ , _run or fight_.

You exhale slowly through your nose, trying to get your emotions under control. You want to reign in your temper, you really do, but you know that eventually you will snap, you have to do _something_ before then.

_I can’t fight him, but I can’t just roll over either_. _There has to be another way._ Your eyes rake over the hallway again, trying to locate any source of aid, but there’s no one there. 

Alastor’s other hand presses the teeth of your key into your arm, the cool metal digging electric welts into your thin skin. 

_He’s going to draw blood_ your instincts claw at the inside of your bones, trying to wrench you into action. _If he draws blood you’re dead_.

“Well?” Alastor practically purrs, his head dipping towards your extended wrist. You can feel your terrified pulse under his grip, straining against its confinement.

“Charlie.” You say suddenly, pressing yourself back against the door as far as you can.

“What about her?” Alastor murmurs, face practically on your forearm, smile unfaltering, teeth inches from your blueish veins. 

_Is he smelling me?_ Can _he smell me?_ You try to fight down the panic and talk your way out of this.

“Charlie needs me today. She was just here. She’s waiting for me in the lobby. Right now.” You hope that that is enough to deter the Radio Demon from exsanguinating you in the hallway. Charlie will come looking for you eventually, if he keeps you here long enough, _right?_

_And that blood was so hard to get out last time_ , you think with a detached sort of objectivity. 

Alastor hums thoughtfully, tilting his chin in a way that suggests he might _lick_ you. Which, thank the Lord, he doesn’t, because that might have completely shattered your tenuous resolve to self-preservation.

Instead, he straightens, and presses your room key into your palm.

“Is that so? Well, far be it from me to pull you from the princess,” Alastor closes your fingers over the key one at a time, carefully, methodically. The gesture is inexplicably, gut wrenchingly frightening.

“On your way then sweetheart, don’t let me keep you.” Alastor releases your wrist like it’s a small bird or an insect or something. You don’t move right away, instead eyeing him before slowly, _very slowly_ retracting you hand. 

_This is too easy_ , you think. Is Charlie really that powerful to him? Certainly not. Does he not care if you finish your task? You predicated all the work you did yesterday on the assumption that he _does_ care about your completion of your job.

_Maybe he just wants to scare you_ , you think slowly, _and he did_.

Alastor tilts his head, smile completely unfaltering, then scrunches his nose slightly and waves a hand as if shooing you away. 

You blink, and take one cautious step towards the stairs, eyes not leaving him, then one more.

You are about to take off at a full sprint when Alastor opens his mouth again.

“Oh, and just one more thing dear.” Holding one finger to his chin in mock thoughtfulness. You stop, keeping one leg poised to make a break for it if he tries anything _else_.

“You should take care not to be late again. Next time I might not be so _lenient_.” There’s a moment of tension, and then Alastor makes a feint towards you, and you take off down the hall at a full sprint, with him cackling behind you the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Hope you had a good weekend <3, shorter chapter today in service of the...  
> SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! I have been working on an extra special Halloween episode for you all! It will be non-canon, but involving characters and elements from the story, maybe even some foreshadowing. I’m having a ton of fun working on it, and plan to release it on Halloween night, for those of you stuck inside on this very strange edition of the best holiday.   
> I do have a quick question for you all though: Would you prefer that I upload the special episode as a “We’re All Mad Here” chapter. It will be longer than a normal chapter, and would be labelled as a special episode with disclaimers and all that, so it would be a little out of place, if more convenient. The other option is to post it separately as part of the same series, and you all can click on and read it at your own pace. Personally, I prefer the second option, BUT you all are the ones clicking through this stuff, so it’s up to you! Let me know what you want!  
> This special episode won’t affect my normal upload schedule, in fact there might even be an extra chapter this week (*maybe*), so no need to worry, for those of you just interested in the slow burn plot, that will continue as promised!   
> Anyways: Alastor is a creep, and I love writing it lol. Next episode will be our first foray out of the hotel since the early days, so look forward to that this week (slight delay on the Angel promised last week, sorry), and beyond that some fun hotel exploration! I have a lot of really cool things planned for you all, right now I would say that we are about a third of the way through part 2, which is looking to be a bit longer than part 1 ^_^  
> That thing I said before, about coming for Dapper Dresser’s word count, ho-ly shit I was not kidding this story is shaping up to be a beast of a slow-ass burn.


	33. Shoes, and Ships, and Sealing Wax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: for homophobic slur
> 
> UPDATE 10/31 some delays on the Holliday chapter, it will be up tomorrow instead! Happy Halloween everyone!
> 
> In this chapter, your shopping exploits continue, and you learn a valuable lesson courtesy of the princess of hell...

Chapter 30: Shoes, and Ships, and Sealing Wax

Trigger Warning: for homophobic slur

* * *

You manage to make it most of the car ride into town before your anxiety sets in.

At home, in the mirror, your disguise had seemed good, great even. You had felt like no demon could pick you out in a crowd.

In the hallway, pinned by Alastor, thinking for the umpteenth time that he was seconds away from eating you _alive,_ you had second guessed that assessment. 

Right now, as Charlie’s limo, pulled up to the curb and watching demons walk by six inches from the window, you are starting to think that you were suffering from a brief episode of insanity this morning, and that stepping out of this car would be suicide.

“Ready?” Charlie asks you from across the car, her hand on the door, Vaggie slouching in the seat next to her You have a strong suspicion that she didn’t _want_ to go shopping, but merely didn’t trust you to go out alone with Charlie. Or maybe she was worried that you would attract unwanted attention. Either way, Vaggie is maintaining a watchful disinterest. 

You on the other hand, are working up a nervous sweat.

“Charlie, can I ask you something?” Your hands are starting to shake, as you try to remember if you’ve seen another demon with taloned feet like yours. 

“Uh, sure, what’s up?” Charlie turns to you.

“Do I smell strange?”

There is an awkward pause, in which Charlie levels you a very odd look, and even Vaggie seems confused.

“Uhhhhh, strange like?” Charlie draws her words out, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“Like…good?”

Charlie opens her mouth to respond, then closes it, looking to Vaggie for clarification. You, still running through every demon you have seen so far, decide that _none_ of them had talons, or a feather pattern like yours, and are working up to a proper internal panic.

“Is there, like, a reason you’re asking me this or…?”

It occurs to you that Charlie is perhaps not the best person to ask this question, given that she had said that she was immune to the effects of your blood, so you instead turn your attention to Vaggie, who holds her hands up defensively.

“Hey woah don’t look at me, I’m taken,” Vaggie says, looking back over at Charlie in discomfort. 

You squint at Vaggie, not really grasping what she had said, but decide to press on anyways

“I know it was just my blood that really bothered you, but are you sure I don’t smell strange, just…in general?”

“OH” Charlie and Vaggie say in unison, and then laugh nervously.

“No, of course not!” Charlie urges, waving he idea away with a hand.

“I don’t really spend my time sniffing people so,” Vaggie starts, before Charlie elbows her in the ribs, “ _Ow,_ abuse! I mean, uh, no.” she shrugs. 

Are you overreacting? There’s no way people can smell your blood inside your body, right? Not even Alastor, creepy and predatory as he is. 

You glance out the window at the passing figures. One large lizard-like demon glances at the limousine, and you are convinced for a moment that she can see you through the tinted glass and you flinch bodily.

“I don’t think…” You flounder, looking back and forth between Charlie and Vaggie nervously, “I don’t think this will work, they’re going to know what I am, I…”

Charlie looks concerned, leans forward and puts a hand on your knee.

“Hey, we don’t have to do this if you’re not comfortable, you don’t have to push yourself.” She smiles at you. It’s comforting, you want to agree with her, ask her to turn the limo around and take you back to the hotel where you can hide amongst only _one_ hungry demon.

“Wait, no, look, we do have to do this.” Vaggie sits forward too, putting her hand in front of Charlie, “You can’t hide in the hotel forever.”

You look up at Vaggie, half in protest because you _absolutely can_ hide in the hotel forever, and partially in surprise at her intervention. Vaggie seems nice, but she hasn’t ever injected herself into the conversation like this. Frankly, you had taken it somewhat for granted that she would stay on the sidelines for your meltdown.

“Look, Alastor’s and his merry band of misfits didn’t notice, these normal-ass people aren’t gonna notice, you look like any bird-demon. You need clothes, and you need to go _outside_.” Vaggie looks strongly at Charlie, before turning back to you, “besides, if anything does go wrong, better it be in some random shop with the two of us to cover for you than in the middle of a hotel party or something.”

Okay, _that_ sounds more like Vaggie, Charlie first, Hotel second, everything else is collateral. But, despite that, you feel oddly reassured by her implication that she and Charlie would _help_ if anything were to go wrong, that they wouldn’t just immediately abandon you. And coming from Vaggie… _maybe I underestimated her_.

Charlie, in spite of her previous urge to allow you to concede defeat, now seems rallied.

“Vaggie does have a point. You will have to go out eventually, and if Al can’t tell, then nobody can!”

_Can the Radio Demon tell?_

You find that even while Vaggie’s argument makes sense, you still aren’t sure if Alastor is fooled by you simply hiding your wings. Maybe he doesn’t _know_ , but he must, at the very least, _suspect_. Unless he views every demon as a potential snack, which, while vaguely nauseating in a way you associate with him, seems unlikely.

“About that…” You start, but Charlie cuts you off with a reassuring smile.

“It’ll be fine, Vaggie and I have your back!”

You flip your hands over in your lap, looking at the veins where they trace up your arms, at the faint blush of red where Alastor grabbed you earlier, your skin still not fully settled. You clench your hands into fists, feeling the strength in them, and look up at the demons in front of you.

“Ok, let’s go.”

…

Dramatic as your resolve may have been, after the initial shock of anxiety at the proximity of so many potentially hostile demons, you find shopping to be, in reality, quite boring.

In heaven, you had never been one for clothing or fashion, opting for a more simple robe design, but even those who enjoyed such pleasures rarely actually changed their clothes. Most angel’s established a certain signature mode of dress, and stuck to it rather faithfully. Perhaps long life spans inspire consistency, or extended time in the lower choirs made angels used to wearing uniforms, but either way, fashion wasn’t a very dynamic exploit in heaven. 

So here, in the very first store Charlie drags you into, you are overwhelmed. There are so many _types_ of clothes, so many colors, all mixed up together in one room. 

That was another thing about heaven, everything was white, monochrome, simple. But here, it was like a storm of color. 

“Why can’t everything just be white?” You mutter to yourself, looking at a rack of dresses covered in delirium inducing patterns.

“Hm?” Charlie says absently, grabbing clothes from a rack and piling them over one arm as you trail behind. Once she realized your heart wasn’t in it, she essentially took over. Considering all you _intended_ to buy was a few pairs of pants like the ones you are wearing, some thin undershirts to go between you and your corset, and maybe a button-down or two, this all seems rather excessive.

Vaggie appears to think the same, and has drifted off to a section of brutally short t-shirts that Charlie calls “crop-tops,” and seems to be shopping for herself. 

On the bright side, not a single demon has given you a second glance, which is particularly good because you are beginning to realize that you are on the smaller end of demons.

 _No wonder 9 th choirs start at nearly ten feet tall, _you think ruefully, _half the demons in here are nearly that._

“Okay” Charlie’s voice pulls you out of your musings, “Go ahead and try these on and tell me what you think.” She shoves a pile of clothes into your arms, and starts to hustle you towards the back of the store.

“Try them on?” You echo, wondering if that means what it sounds like it means, and if she really intends for you to put on every article of clothing in the pile she has handed you.

“Yup, never buy before you try.” Charlie confirms, somewhat unhelpfully, and before you know it you have been shunted into a wooden stall by Charlie and a rather surly feline sales attendant. 

Sifting through the pile, you do think that most of these clothes seem to be in your size. You like the colors too, mostly pastels and a lot of gray, things that match your feathers and light hair. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you, a sizeable chunk of the shirts in the group sport low necklines, open back, or both, neither of which you are comfortable with in light of your wings and markings.

You do eventually try on some things, tossing aside the thin fabrics that show the flamboyant striped pattern of your bustier underneath, or the dark blotch of your St. Peter’s cross. You do find a thick, gray sweater that you like, which feels good against your downy neck feathers and hides the extra bust created by the corset. You also pick out a pair of mid-thigh shorts, baggy enough to pull over your large feet and long enough to soothe your newfound modesty.

You return to Charlie with your prizes, handing the assistant the pile of rejects. You half expect Charlie to be upset by your low returns, but she just hums thoughtfully at your choices and nods like she is mentally calculating something. 

“Ok, so longer shorts, and sweaters. That’s good,” She glances up at you, “What did you like about them?”

Unprepared, you fumble the question a bit before answering.

“I like the color, of the sweater. It—It’s the same as my feathers, I thought it looked nice.” You feel yourself blush slightly, but Charlie smiles encouragingly so you keep going.

“It, um, also didn’t show through,” You gesture vaguely “Angel lent me something to wear under, to hide my..” You look up at the sales attendant, a few feet away. She doesn’t _seem_ to be paying attention, but you are better off playing it safe.

“Anyways, it’s rather, um, bright. And also there’s my…” You stop again, and gesture vaguely to your ribcage where your Mark of Cain sits, Charlie nods. “The thin shirts, you can see through them. The shorts, I liked that they were,” you almost say modest, but feel a bit silly, so instead go with, “long. Also my feet are sharp and hard to fit into things, so I like that they are loose.”

Charlie taps a finger on her chin and thinks, looking down at your feet.

“I see what you mean, yeah. So opaque fabric, light colors, high coverage and loose fits.”

“Oh,” you interject, suddenly remembering the mental note you made earlier, “I also like these pants that you lent me, they stretch, I could get them over my feet.”

Charlie snaps and points to you, adding to her list.

“And leggings or yoga pants, got it!”

Apparently the stretchy pants you like are sold just about everywhere, and Charlie picks you up three pairs of them at this store, plus a pair of denim pants with a wide leg that looked intriguing. As for whatever equation for fashion success she had concocted earlier, Charlie has another store in mind altogether, although you do pick out several button downs like Charlie wears in your size.

Vaggie reconvenes with the two of you at the checkout counter, where you are steadfastly trying to talk Charlie out of paying for your clothes.

“It’s fine, I really don’t mind, plus this is your _first time_ shopping, it’s kind of a big deal.” Charlie insists, holding her bright red credit card out of your reach. You are, once again, bemoaning your small size. That, and the fact that, by virtue of your avian feet, you are always walking on the equivalent of your toes so you can’t even stretch the extra inch or so that Charlie can. 

“I would really prefer if I could pay, you’ve done so much for me already I just don’t want to—”

“Do you even _have_ money?” Vaggie quips, her own bag filled with a combination of muted grays and blocky purple patterns.

“Not exactly…” You trail, looking left and pursing your lips

“She wants me to take it out of her paycheck” Charlie responds, swapping the card to her other hand when you make a fruitless lunge for it.

You aren’t all that good at jumping either, not that you’d had any need for it when you could _fly._ You contemplate working some kind of physical training into your new schedule.

“Ah,” Vaggie comments, stepping in front of the two of you towards a bemused cashier, apparently willing to let you and Charlie figure it out.

“Charlie, _please?_ ” you ask, but Charlie just raises her eyebrow at you. You’ll have to think of a better reason.

You lean towards Charlie conspiratorially, which seems to attract her attention, and she leans down slightly.

“Plus, I don’t have any experience with money, I would really like to get a head start on that.” You whisper, and Charlie seems to consider this, “and I would honestly just feel _more comfortable_ being _in charge_ of my finances” You try to use phrases you have heard Charlie use before, specifically in reference to you, hoping to appeal to her values. You see her waver, and go in for the kill.

“ _Please,_ Charlie, it would mean a lot to me.” Charlie looks down at you, seeming conflicted, before finally relenting with a long sigh.

“ _Fine,_ I’ll give you the receipt, you can pay me back when you want, but I’m not gonna send you a bill or anything.”

 _Close enough_. Frankly, you are just uncomfortable with the increasing volume of _debt_ you owe Charlie. You _know_ that she doesn’t view it that way, and it’s not as though the concept of charity is foreign to you, it’s a virtue you value greatly, but, even then. 

You feel like a dangerous burden that Charlie has elected to shoulder, you don’t want to make things any harder for her than they already are. If for some reason you find yourself, say, publicly executed by several thousand angry and ravenous demons, you would prefer that Charlie wouldn’t be left short on money as well as an employee. 

You just…You want to minimize your damage.

The cashier rings up your small pile of clothes and passes them back in a slick plastic bag printed with their logo: _H &L_ while Charlie pays.

It takes you a moment to realize the moniker is meant to be “HEL” although Charlie calls the store “H and L.” The thought makes you wonder if your own newfound involuntary reflex for puns is just an underworld cultural touchstone. Does becoming a demon automatically come with an altered sense of humor? Not that you remember having much of a sense of humor before the **fall** , but you suspect that the pun on your shopping bag is not nearly as witty as your giggling would suggest. 

“What’s so funny?” Vaggie raises a suspicious eyebrow, cocking her hip. She has an uncanny ability to _seem_ taller than you, a sense of implicit authority, although you think that you actually have a few inches on her.

You point to the logo, snickering. Vaggie looks blank.

“It’s a pun.” You say shrugging, Vaggie just blinks.

“Like, it’s supposed to be ‘Hell’” You elaborate, Vaggie still seems lost.

“Never mind.”

Maybe the sense of humor is just you after all.

…

The next store is several blocks away, so Charlie says, and the three of you opt to walk instead of drive. Or more accurately, Vaggie insists that you walk when you try to get back in the limo, citing the same logic that got you out of the vehicle in the first place.

For the first few minutes, you find yourself involuntarily cringing away from every demon you pass, trying to keep Vaggie and Charlie between you and anyone or anything else on the street. You find the distinction to be unclear.

You made an effort to start thinking of the demons as people and not just generic monsters, but the diversity of body types and sizes muddies the line between demon and animal. Several of what you identify as _people_ have other demonic creatures on leads, which you can only assume are pets, but then several four-legged demons trot past your group, leaving you entirely confused about the line between proper humanoid demon and demonic animal. 

You decide that your best bet is to walk between your chaperones and avoid everything on the street with a pulse, just to be safe. Vaggie, evidently doesn’t appreciate your inserting yourself into her hand-holding session, but you, surprisingly, find the odds of Vaggie killing you to be lower than, say, those of the hulking lizard like demon with a spiraling tribal tattoo creeping down the walkway towards you.

You duck your head slightly, trying not to look at the demon’s protruding lower jaw and jutting teeth, and lean towards Charlie. The three of you, walking in a line, take up most of the sidewalk, although most smaller demons can pass by Vaggie with no problem. This particular demon is anything but small, but Vaggie doesn’t move to make room for the lumbering form.

Apparently undeterred, the demon drops its shoulder and pushes through Vaggie, knocking her smaller body into you and then you into Charlie.

“ _Mierda_ ,” Vaggie swears, as you catch her awkwardly, “Watch where you’re going dumbass”

“Oh yeah? What are _you_ gonna do about it tiny?” The larger figure turns, glaring down over you and Vaggie with a cocky sneer.

“ _Estúpido hijo de puta”_ Vaggie spits, bristling like a cat and clenching her fists. You watch a single glistening string of drool connecting two of the demon’s teeth as his grin grows feral, and make a move to get in front of Vaggie, although you aren’t sure if it is to protect her or the other guy.

“Woah hey,” Charlie pushes in front of the two of you, resting one hand calmingly on Vaggie’s shoulder, “There’s no need for this. This was out fault, sir, we should have been more careful.”

The bigger demon squints and leans down, blowing a blast of hot rancid air into Charlie’s face that you can smell even over her shoulder.

“Oh, yeah?”

You can hear the threat, it practically drips off the words, but Charlie just nods placatingly.

“Yes, completely our fault, I’m sorry.”

The demon pauses, glancing between Charlie and the still-fuming Vaggie, and you can almost hear the gears turning over in its head.

“Yeah? And what about your little friend there?” the demon gestured with their chin.

Vaggie stiffens, and puts her hand on top of Charlies where it rests against her shoulder, squeezing slightly. Charlie shifts, almost imperceptibly, dragging back the demon’s attention.

“We were careless,” Charlie insists, “I’m sorry for inconveniencing you, we don’t want any trouble.”

The demon hesitates, apparently unsure of how to approach Charlie’s steadfast pacifism, before spiting contemptuously at Charlie’s feet and lumbering off down the street.

“Faggots” The hulking back grunts disdainfully before disappearing around the next corner. 

Charlie fishes in the back pocket of her slacks and retrieves a handkerchief, bending down and wiping off one shoe. Vaggie says tense for a moment before releasing a sigh and crouching down in front of Charlie.

“Let me get it,” She mutters, taking the cloth and cleaning off Charlie’s sneakers. Charlie just smiles and thanks her, sounding tired.

You stand for a second, baffled. Charlie had all but literally just turned the other cheek, diffused a situation with only her words, with a literally drooling belligerent demon as her opponent. It was…

“Charlie that was amazing.” You find yourself thinking aloud.

Charlie startles slightly, and looks back at you like she had forgotten you were there.

“What?”

“You—you talked him down like it was nothing,” You gesture to where the demon had disappeared, “he was seconds away from attacking Vaggie and you just…talked him out of it”

Charlie blinks, and then blushes slightly, her already pink cheeks brightening.

“Oh, well, I mean, I am the princess, diplomacy is like…well I’ve had a lot of practice,” She mumbles, straightening as Vaggie hands her back the handkerchief and pats her encouragingly on the back.

“She’s right though,” Vaggie shrugs, “you are amazing.”

And then Charlie just sort of dissolves into a puddle of incoherent embarrassment.

You’re still reeling though.

The demon hadn’t even _recognized_ her as royalty. She hadn’t cited authority, she hadn’t intimidated him, she just, apologized and it _worked_.

You realize that you had, up to this point, unconsciously been expecting _any_ encounter with a hostile demon to end in violence. You were primed for it, every sideways glance, every glinting claw, you had just been assuming that they couldn’t be reasoned with, that violence or wholesale submission were the only options.

But here, Charlie had just apologized, just been reasonable, _nice_ even, and that lumbering stupid demon had backed off, even after Vaggie had insulted it.

 _Maybe they don’t want to fight_ , you think with dawning comprehension.

For an angel, a fight with anything not obviously stronger than you is relatively low risk. Angels heal, they heal rapidly, and injuries and less determined by _pain_ than by inconvenience; as long as you don’t lose a limb, you should heal completely. Demons do heal, you know, if more slowly than you do, so a fight shouldn’t hypothetically be a serious risk. But fights _hurt_ , as you have come to realize. With a demon’s nervous system, they hurt _a lot_ , maybe demons want to avoid violence just as much as you do. They can be _reasoned with_.

“Do you think—” You start suddenly, intruding on the flirtation happening next to you with a sudden thought, “Do you think that would work on Alastor?”

Vaggie looks confused, but Charlie looks towards you brightly.

“What, being diplomatic?” You nod slowly, and she considers this, “I mean, sure, why not. Not everything has to be a fight.” She touches Vaggie’s nose with an index finger, and Vaggie shoots her a look of patent disbelief before turning back to you.

“What do you need to be diplomatic with the talk-show shitlord for?”

You look down the street, where the demon disappeared, and consider the possibilities. Could you really just, talk your way out of Alastor’s meddling, just be nice to him and get him to back off?

“Uh, hello?” Vaggie’s hand pops into your vision, waving for your attention, “anyone home?”

You start and turn to her, confused.”

“I said, why do you need to use diplomacy on the Radio creep?” she repeats, impatient eyebrow raised.

“Oh,” you reply, “I think he wants to eat me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Hi again everyone! Busy week for me, but I’m glad I made it through.  
> Mind blowing revelations for our angel, thinking that demons can be reasonable. She has an issue dehumanizing everyone but her friends lol.  
> Anyways, finishing up the shopping trip next week. I was going to put the rest of it onto this chapter, but I ended up needing more time on the holiday chapter, and the length here was OK, so I think I will just extend Monday’s chapter a bit to wrap everything up :).  
> Anyways, that’s all from me, have a Spooktacular All Hallows Eve, and be sure to check “other works in this series” tomorrow for the special Halloween one-shot!  
> Oh, and translations for those interested.  
> “Mierda” = shit  
> “Estúpido hijo de puta” = dumbass motherfucker (In spirit at least. Literally it would be “stupid son of a whore”)  
> <3


	34. Update (not a chapter)

Hi guys!   
I'm dealing with some writer's block at the moment (Which is also why the Halloween chapter is late T_T sorry guys, but I mean what is November if not Halloween 2) I'm going to try and hammer out the chapter by tomorrow, but I'm not sure when I'll get back in the zone, so it may take an extra day or two, so stay tuned! Thanks for all the support everyone <3


	35. Just What I Choose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IM BACK BITCHES! Thank you all so much for your patience with me these past few weeks! There were some health scares in my family, which thankfully all sorted themselves out, but it was very stressful there for a while, and being able to see all of your lovely comments urging me to take as much time as I needed was seriously a source of relief. I can't thank you all enough for your continued interest and support <3  
> Additionally, I wanted to say thank you to those of you who have made fan art of this story!!!! I am so honored and flattered to have such talented people making drawings for this, ahhh! I get excited just thinking about it! Please check out the NOTES section for links, and remember, if you make fan art, please please please let me know if you would like for me to post it on the chapter updates, because I will assume you do NOT want that unless you give me permission (I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable with the spotlight)   
> ANYWAYS thank you all once again, and welcome back!
> 
> In this chapter, you do some serious self-reflection...

Chapter 31: Just What I Choose

* * *

“He what?” Charlie asks, with a little disbelieving laugh.

You don’t answer right away, still mulling over your thoughts, and there is a beat where no one speaks, before Vaggie sort of implodes.

You don’t exactly see Vaggie react, you are still staring down the street after all, entertaining vague dreams of masterful diplomacy with the Radio Demon. You don’t see her react as much as you feel it, full in your periphery, like a wildfire.

She _panics_. You haven’t seen Vaggie panic since your run in when you first woke up in the hotel, but you’re somehow completely unsurprised by her panic taking the form of immediate pragmatism. You can feel it, scorching a hole through you, burning your right or flight instincts like a fuse, but she merely looks up and down the street, seizes your arm, and moves both you and Charlie bodily into a secluded alleyway.

“He knows?” She hisses looking sidelong down the grimy pavement with her one eye. Charlie, just stands there opened mouthed. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

You blink owlishly at Vaggie, trying to reorient to her simmering panic, and stutter. Charlie seems equally ill-equipped to keep up with Vaggie’s train of thought, and the two of you reel to catch up with her, presumably already 10 steps ahead and plotting an escape route.

“I...I tried to say something—But yes, I think, well I don’t know for sure, but I just get this sense that, I mean I don’t know that he _knows_ per say.” You stammer. Vaggie looks halfway ready to charge back to the hotel on the war path to kill Alastor and your secret with him. Frankly her commitment is overwhelming, and you find it hard to do anything but flounder. You hadn’t meant to set her off. Admittedly _“I think he wants to eat me”_ is rather inflammatory, but it had seemed so obvious, it just, well, slipped out.

“Does or doesn’t he _know_.” Vaggie squeezes your arm urgently.

“I—” You try again. Does Alastor _know_? You aren’t sure, you had half thought you were being paranoid, and your suspicions about his appetite are just that, suspicions. 

_Does Alastor know that I’m an angel?_ You don’t _know_ , but the feeling, the predatory aura he has, surely it has to mean something?

_He wants to eat me_. You had been so certain, you hadn’t given the statement a second thought.

You don’t know what Alastor knows or doesn’t know or suspects or whatever else, but you think, with the few days you have been in heaven, you can spot a predator. So he must know _something_ , right?

You are standing in silence, trying to pin down your scattered thoughts. Vaggie looks like she wants to shake you.

“Vaggie, calm down,” Charlie’s voice is like a fire extinguisher, at the sound Vaggie’s hands on your arms go from scorching to tolerable, and her panic boils off into fine steam. Charlie puts an arm on Vaggie’s, pulling her gently away and then looking at you.

“What do you mean he wants to eat you?” She asks, putting out Vaggie’s fire, backtracking to the source and quelling it.

“I-I’m not sure. It’s just….” You glance between the two of them, still thrown by Vaggie’s reaction, “I know what it looks like when people want to take a bite out of me.” Vaggie actually blushes, her cheeks turning faintly lavender, and she looks away. You feel a little bad, it’s not as though Vaggie was the _only one_ to try and eat you, you hadn’t meant to call her out specifically, “he just, looks like that, sometimes.” You shrug, helpless.

“Has he said anything to make you think he knows about your, um, situation?” Charlie glances sidelong down the alley, which is blessedly empty. 

You consider for a moment, trying to dig past Alastor’s weird maneuvering. Under the vague threats and intimidation and power plays, has he said anything? Anything about your lack of identity, your strange appearance, the wings tucked securely under your shirt?

“No.” You say, “He hasn’t said anything specific, he just seems…” You flounder for the word, trying to sum up the intention, the feeling, “hungry.”

Charlie blinks, and Vaggie deflates visibly.

“Well fuck, he looks like he’s gonna bite my head off half the time too, shitlord is like 95% teeth.” She sighs, “Jesus Christ, girl don’t scare me like that, I was about to put you in witness protection or something.” She laughs halfheartedly and looks up at Charlie, who seems oddly pensive.

“What’s up?” She asks, putting a hand on Charlie’s bicep.

“It’s just…well, I’ve heard rumors…” Charlie bites her lip and looks past you out onto the street, considering something, before shaking herself, “No, never mind.”

You give her a look, trying to figure out the change, but she just smiles, waving the thought away like a puff of smoke, to which Vaggie makes no protest.

“I know things are stressful, you had an insane landing and a pretty terrible introduction to hell, I get it, but it’s OK. Alastor can’t smell your blood, he doesn’t know what you are, he’s not going to eat you, okay? No one is going to be doing anything _remotely_ threatening, not in my hotel.” Charlie nods definitively, seeming to think the matter is settled.

_“Not remotely threatening”_ seems like very high hopes for Alastor, but Charlie does have a point. You are in her hotel, Alastor is vastly powerful, you don’t have a single doubt about that particular fact, but even he must have _some_ misgivings about painting the halls of _Lucifer’s Daughter’s_ building with angel blood. And there really is no reason to think that he knows about your divinity—ex-divinity, that is.

But you can’t shake that feeling. There was a look in Vaggie’s eyes, that first day when you were bleeding half your body weight out onto the carpet, a look of intense focus. You can only imagine what you looked like when Alastor was placing all those dishes in front of you at breakfast, but thinking back you had been _focused_. With Alastor, there are flickers.

_He can’t know_ , you reason to yourself, following Charlie and Vaggie out of the alleyway, listening to them chat idly about Alastor’s creepy demeanor.

But then, that’s begs the question of Charlie’s reaction. She seems sure that Alastor is none the wiser, but then, what _“rumors”_ has Charlie heard? You can understand her reticence to share, hearsay is dangerous after all, but you are oddly curious. You find yourself chasing the idea down a mental rabbit hole, trying to pin down just what Charlie could have heard that might apply.

You almost don’t notice the store front, nearly walking past it while Charlie and Vaggie turn and step through the glass doors. Scrambling, you backtrack and head in after them, blinking at the change in lighting. The store is much smaller than the last one had been, but even more crowded with garments, creating a maze-like interior that you find intimidating.

At least from your angle you are seeing a lot of pastels, and the few outfits pinned to mannequins look friendly and open in a way that appeals to you. Even so, the sheer volume of clothing remains overwhelming. Charlie, thankfully, appears fully comfortable with the setting, waving cheerily to the clerk and diving into the clothes with zeal, occasionally holding up gauzy shirts and bulky sweaters for your opinion.

You try to be nice about everything she shows you, smiling and giving a thumbs up, but you suppose that Charlie is some kind of fashion savant, because she seems to sense your disapproval and puts about half the garments back on the rack regardless of your attempts at universal praise.

Vaggie, for her part, doesn’t appear nearly as interested in this store as she had in the last, and lingers near the front window, looking lazily at the mannequins and intermittently glancing over at the back of Charlie’s lowered head.

You drift towards Vaggie, as Charlie accrues a growing pile of clothing, and peer over her shoulder at the limbless mannequin she is investigating, dressed in a ruffled pink dress of uncomfortably short length. 

“Having fun?” Vaggie tosses, glancing back at you and moving to browse a nearby rack.

“It’s a bit overwhelming, clothing isn’t something I’ve ever really worried about, before…” You shrug, and smile wryly.

“Yeah, I get that. Shopping always tires me out.” Vaggie says, pulling a long sleeved blouse off the rack and making a face.

You stand in silence for a few moments, watching Vaggie and tapping your nails along your horn nervously. You normally enjoy silence, half the angels in heaven rarely speak, some can’t, so silence is familiar. But right now you feel antsy, still mulling over the earlier conversation.

“Vaggie,” you blurt, and Vaggie turns to you halfway, raising an eyebrow. “I, um, just wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?” Vaggie asks, cocking her hip.

You hesitate. _For what_ , you aren’t exactly sure.

But, Vaggie had _reacted_ to what you had said, about Alastor. She had jumped into action, _for you_. Nothing had happened per say, but she had seemed so willing to come to your defense. You hadn’t thought of Vaggie as _charitable_ , you still wouldn’t, but somehow she had gathered you into her fold, considered you as someone who deserved concern. That feels significant.

Vaggie’s eyebrow ticks up higher at your silence, she seems halfway to turning away from you before you finally speak.

“For taking me seriously, about Alastor. Thank you.” You settle, smiling awkwardly. 

Vaggie pauses, looking vaguely embarrassed, then turns back to the rack of clothes with a muttered acknowledgement. You almost don’t hear her when she speaks again.

“I just, know that it’s serious,” She mutters, picking half-heartedly at the sleeve of a gray shirt. You pause confused, but wait for her to continue, feeling like you might shatter whatever she is about to say if you speak.

There is a beat of silence, and then Vaggie turns to you with an uncomfortable shrug.

“When Angel brought you in, you were bleeding everywhere. At first I didn’t notice it, it kind of snuck up on me, this, like, _need._ I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s like one second I was fine, ignoring the blood, and the next it was all I could think about. Charlie basically had to carry me out, it was completely fucked. I had no control.” Vaggie looks at you, her eye dark, and then over to Charlie who is comparing two nearly identical shirts with intense focus, before shaking her head. “Honestly it fucks with me that you have that power, like all you have to do is fall and skin your knee and I would be…I hate it, frankly I hate you for it.” She shrugs like she is stating the obvious, “Sorry, but it’s the truth. And thinking of the talk show creep losing it like I did. Yeah, I’m going to take that seriously.”

You blink, looking at Vaggie’s smaller profile.

You hadn’t realized…Charlie had implied that Vaggie had trouble with your blood, and even walked her out when you tore your stitches, but you didn’t know Vaggie had been sitting on _this_. You weren’t even awake and it’s like you attacked her, scared her, made her lose track of herself.

You recall struggling out of the crater after your landing, a stranger in your own skin, and reaching for a Valiant weapon that would not materialize, a part of yourself that had been ripped from you. Your blood alone had taken Vaggie’s control away, you made her into a monster in a hotel dedicated to redemption. You had made her a monster in front of Charlie.

And of course, Charlie would never see it that way, but Vaggie…there is guilt in her, real palpable guilt for something she cannot control, guilt for what you could do to her without even trying.

“I’m sorry,” you say, eyes never leaving Vaggie. She flinches and turns to you.

“No, don’t do that, don’t apologize that’s…you can’t change it so don’t apologize. Don’t apologize for shit you can’t control.” She narrows her good eye at you, then turns back to Charlie.

“If I could change it, I would” you say, feeling a single tear track its way down your face and catch in your downy neck feathers. Vaggie isn’t looking at you, she is watching Charlie, and you are glad that she doesn’t see you cry.

“Yeah well, _así es la vida._ ” She says.

Charlie looks up, then, and smiles at the two of you, and Vaggie doesn’t hesitate to walk over to join her. You watch her go.

Vaggie is afraid of you, for many reasons. She resents you, for which you cannot blame her, and she doesn’t trust you, which is smart, all things considered. She said you couldn’t change that.

And yet here she is, alongside Charlie, working to fulfil an impossible goal in the most unforgiving atmosphere imaginable, working to change things. Vaggie is afraid of you, she doesn’t trust you, she resents you, but somehow, you don’t think that she blames you.

Somehow, that feels like forgiveness.

…

Eventually, Charlie pulls you out of your introspection and shoves a fresh pile of clothes into your arms, hustling you towards the back of the store where a small area has been blocked off by curtains. Charlie hangs the clothes along the far wall, and instructs you to try them all on.

You blink as she swishes the curtain closed behind you, and then scan the forest of clothes she has left. The colors are nice, mostly pastels, your spot a pale blue that reminds you of the skies around heaven, inspiring both nostalgia and a strange deep sort of ache. You can’t tell if you like the sensation or not, so you just start picking clothes at random and putting them on.

You are continuously surprised by the complexity of your feelings towards heaven. On the one hand, you resent Michael and the other angels, their cruelty in casting you out, branding you and watching you fall like a burning meteor into the depths of hell. Not only that, but their callous disregard of the humans, their ability to condemn them with not a second thought, without any guilt, any questions. The unwavering certainty of it all is disturbing in a strange new way.

You tug at the collar of the blouse you are trying on, high necked and ruffled. You decide it is too stiff and toss it into the growing stack of reject garments.

But then again, you think, you had been certain too, in heaven. On trial even, you hadn’t questioned your motives, you hadn’t even questioned your methods. It had been so clear then, heaven was unwilling to back your efforts and so you failed, but your cause had, of course, been just. Your intentions, you were sure, were good. But now, from below, that certainty seems almost alien to you, too much like the stony faces of the other angels as they grabbed your smoldering body and flung you off to the cold embrace of gravity 

You had thought that if you could just make them see, just make them understand the flaws in the system, that you could fix things, but now that belief seems hopelessly naïve. The longer you are _below_ the more the figures above appear as monsters, unrelatable, inscrutable, cold to the suffering below them.

You pluck out the pale blue shirt and study it. It’s a blouse, slightly lower cut than some of the others, but still modest, and with a flowing ruffle in the front.

From heaven the world had been simple, orderly. Now everything was horribly messy, steeped in inky emotion that stains even the simplest matters into undifferentiated pulpy blackness. When you thought about heaven, at first, it had been clear. Tragic sadness, pain for what you had lost, and resentment for those who had cast you out, simple. But the deeper you dig the more you uncover. Self-disgust, shame, and hatred, real deep burning hatred.

You look nice in the shirt, you think, and the material is thick enough not to show the red stripes beneath. The blue is clear, clean, almost white. It’s the kind of blue you will never experience again, the kind of blue that you have lost.

You shake your head, and add the blouse to the “approved” pile. _Complicated, everything is so complicated._

And now this business with the Radio Demon, as if you didn’t have enough problems. It had been easy to malign him, view him as a predator to be avoided, or occasionally resisted when the spirit so moved you. But now, after seeing Charlie talk that belligerent demon down on the sidewalk, you are forced to consider the reality of Alastor as a living thinking _person_ and not a paper-thin distillation of hellish evil.

You pull a soft turtleneck shirt from the pile, a delicate pink color, and wrestle it on over your horns. It’s warm, almost too warm on your neck, but Charlie had mentioned that the weather in hell could be inclement. Perhaps you should look for a jacket too?

You sigh, adjusting the collar to lay flat against your feathers, and pull a pair of slacks off a hanger. 

Diplomacy, it sounds easy enough, but the implication is that the other side might _want_ to be diplomatic, and what would that mean for Alastor? As far as you could tell, this all seems to be a game to him, and your anger, no matter how suicidally direct, has yet to be met with anything other than amusement, and the occasional thinly-veiled threat. From that perspective, Alastor hasn’t actually _done_ anything to you.

Well, no, he insulted you, dropped you twice, told you to be quiet, threatened you, stole your room key and seemed to seriously consider using it to cut you to pieces, but most of that had been…posturing? It’s not that you _doubted_ that his threats were real, or that he _couldn’t_ rip you limb from limb, should he want to, it’s just that…if he seems to want to badly enough to threaten it constantly, why hasn’t he actually _done_ it?

You strip off the outfit and add it to the pile, then pick up something with lace and a long row of buttons.

Sure, there is the issue of Charlie, and Charlie’s father of course. Alastor undoubtedly wouldn’t want to eviscerate you in Charlie’s lobby. But on some level, that doesn’t convince you. Alastor seems the type to do what he wants and damn the consequences. So then, if he hasn’t made good on his threats, what is the purpose of them?

_Intimidation is the surest form of conflict resolution with the demons. If you find yourself in a compromised position, or against a horde, rely on intimidation to dissuade the demons from attacking. Focus you efforts on one demon, as an example, or buy yourself time by talking and wait for backup._

Is intimidation just Alastor’s form of diplomacy? He is playing a game, you are sure of that, at least, but right now the rules seem to only allow for running, hiding, and threats. If you add tact, does that change the game?

You poke your head out of the curtains, and make eye contact with Charlie.

“Charlie, would you mind helping me with these buttons?” You ask, unable to reach the length running up your back.

Charlie brightens, and heads towards you. She seems to have materialized even _more_ clothes in the time it took you to try on less than half of what she had given you to begin with, and you can’t help but roll your eyes at her enthusiasm.

You let Charlie into the changing room and face the mirror, inspecting the shirt. The lace is nice, you decide, and the long, wide sleeves leave your arms free, which would be a plus in a fight. Not that you intend to get into any fights, per say, but planning for eventualities makes you feel slightly more secure.

“Hey, uh, what’s this?” Charlie asks, and you peer over your shoulder to try and see what she is looking at. You can’t get the angle right, and after a moment she spins you around so you can see the open back of the shirt in the mirror.

_The corset, of course_.

Logically, you have nothing to be ashamed of, you know this. The corset is a purely practical choice, and it does a spectacular job of securing your wings. 

In spite of this, you can’t help the blush that creeps across your cheeks.

“Oh, that is, um, the thing I mentioned earlier, that Angel lent me, to hide my, um…” You think it has suddenly become _very_ hot in the changing room.

“OH” Charlie snaps her fingers and grins, “Oh that’s what you meant, that’s super smart, I love it. My dad chopped his off way before I was born, so I didn’t even think about ways to hide them”

You pale, staring at Charlie in the mirror with wide yellow eyes.

“He…amputated them?” You ask, aghast. 

“Oh, uh, yeah, did I not mention that?” Charlie’s grin fades slightly, and she scratches her neck self-consciously.

You stare at the corset in the mirror, just a sliver of angry red underneath cream lace.

_Amputate my wings?_ The thought hadn’t occurred to you, to just cut them off. It makes sense, morbidly, the appendages are all but useless now that they are disfigured, and they don’t have half the precision of your arms and hands. Without feathers, they are just clumsy maimed things you are forced to hide.

_But, they’re my wings_ , you think. They’re part of you, you can’t just chop them off when they become useless, no matter how logical it may be. You can’t just go lopping off body parts to fit in in hell, absolutely not.

“Hey uh, my dad is kind of nuts so like, don’t think about it to hard. He always says he did it to impress mom, so, I mean, I wouldn’t recommend you follow his example or anything like that,” Charlie starts buttoning your shirt hastily, as if the fabric can cover up the awkward atmosphere.

_Of course,_ you don’t want to start following in the example of Lucifer, of all beings. Of course _he_ can chop off his wings without a second thought. You give yourself a little shake to try and dislodge the image in your head, yourself, weirdly lopsided and oddly handicapped without a third of your limbs.

“It’s fine, thank you for the help” You say, allowing Charlie to finish up the buttons. Then, as an afterthought, you add, “What do you think?” and gesture towards the shirt.

Charlie smiles, looking relieved.

“I love it!”

The shirt goes in the “approved” pile, along with a few other things. Charlie continues to try and add to your growing haul, but at some point you decide that, for your first time shopping, you have more than enough. Perhaps a bit disappointed, Charlie lets you bring the pile to the register, before leaping into conversation with the clerk, a small demon with two round orange ears on her head and a bristling whiskered snout.

You scan the room idly, waiting for Charlie to finish her conversation. Vaggie is near the door, reading a magazine off of a nearby table. You can just see the cover, and recognize the aerial shot of your landing site from the news. Wincing, you look for something else to focus on. 

Your eyes land on one of the limbless mannequins, posed on the far side of the dressing-room curtain. You hadn’t seen it before, with the curtain drawn, but now you get look at the outfit. The mannequin is wearing a pair of pants, buttons running up the side of the legs and waist ending high above its hips. Underneath is a blouse, not unlike the pale blue one you picked out earlier, but it is the jacket that really catches your attention. It’s a short thing, but with wide lapels and brass buttons down the front, and two large pads on the shoulders.

It reminds you of something, and at first you can’t place what exactly, before it hits you. It looks like a military jacket, the kind that has long since gone out of fashion on earth, but was popular during your first few decades on the planet. The jacket is stylized, and delicately feminine, but the design is unmistakable. 

Surprising yourself, you drift over towards the display and inspect the coat. You aren’t sure what it is exactly, but something about the military design you find undeniable. Heaven had been militarized, of course, but heaven lacked the formal, ranked clothing of earth. Rank was shown by height, after all, clothing was merely a luxury. For humans, who all looked brutally similar when compared to either angels or demons, clothing was all but necessary to express status. 

“Do you like it?” Charlie’s voice makes you jump, and you turn to see her standing just behind you, the small clerk next to her, a ringed orange tail just visible swishing around her knees

“It’s, um, military. I liked the design.” You shrug noncommittally, but Charlie urges you forward.

“Try it!” She insists, and the smaller demon chimes in too.

“It would look good on you.” She says quietly.

Feeling odd under the attention, you gently take the coat down and try it on. It sits surprisingly comfortably on your narrow frame, and the shoulder pads even fill you out some. On top of that, it’s actually quite warm, which is a perk.

“Made for you,” The little demon, who you now realize is something like a Red Panda, chirps, circling you and adjusting the fabric.

Charlie, for her part, just squeals.

“Oh my gosh you look _awesome_ , the military look totally works for you, we have to get that!” Charlie is practically vibrating as the panda-demon eases the jacket off of your shoulders and folds it over one arm.

You consider arguing, but then again, you had said you wanted a jacket, and you had picked this one out for yourself, which appears to have Charlie all but frothing with excitement.

A military jacket to enact some diplomacy on the Radio Demon?

_Sure,_ you think, _why not_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BAAAAACK!!!   
> Honestly its a huge relief to be writing again, this story is such a great de-stresser for me, coming back to it is awesome.   
> ANYWAYS first things first, I have for you all a link to some amazing fanart posted by the amazing and talented Omen_Creations on Instagram:   
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CHMZEjxgGj1/  
> I would also like to thank Omen for their help with the clothing in this chapter! I am very lost when it comes to fashion, and they were kind enough to go through some concepts with me and even send some inspiration photos which led to the inclusion of the military jacket in this chapter <3 Thank you so much!!!  
> Reminder once again, if you make fan art or anything else related to this fic, please let me know if it is OK to link that in the notes, because I would love to share it!
> 
> Secondly: with regards to uploads, I am intending to get back on my Monday/Friday schedule, although its 50/50 if I will have a post for you all this Friday given Thanksgiving. For sure tune in on Monday though, for your regularly scheduled program.   
> Additionally, if you haven't seen already, I posted that "short" Halloween spinoff a little while ago, which turned into a complete beast of a project and was basically my stress outlet there for a while. If you are interested, you can find that by going to the "Curiouser and Curiouser" series page. <3 
> 
> Okay, thats about it from me guys. As always, comments are appreciated and loved, I do my best to respond to everyone! Thank you all once again for your patience with me, and for sticking around, and I'll see you next time!


	36. Cabbages and Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm back (again, lol) with another update, and the long awaited end of the shopping trip lol.
> 
> In this chapter, you give diplomacy a shot.

Chapter 32: Cabbages and Kings

* * *

On the way into the store, you had been too nervous about maintaining a safe distance between you and denizens of hell to really notice the scenery. On your way out, peeking around and under a towering stack of boxes and bags and tissue paper, you find yourself unable to look at much else.

Then again, the tower of clothes is severely limiting your field of vision, so what you can see of the city is a sort of truncated slice of reality. Seeing the garments stacked on the counter, the little panda-demon wrapping each one carefully in bright pieces of colored paper, you had serious doubts about the sheer volume. Charlie had assured you that, as someone with quite literally no clothes of their own, this was a justifiable amount of clothing. You ran some mental calculations and figured that, at the very least, you hadn’t come close to rivalling Angel’s sprawling wardrobe, and tried not to wince as the bags piled up. You had practically had to tackle Charlie for the receipt, but given your severe lack of knowledge about the value of money, you could only guess at how mortified you should be by all the zeroes.

Suffice to say, you leave the shop in what is very nearly a complete suit of commercial armor. Weirdly, you find that the awkward size of the pile you are carrying serves as a sort barrier between you and any passing demons, giving you a strange and likely false sense of security. Besides, you reason, you can’t smell anything over the strange artificial perfume of the store still sticking to you and your bags, so other demons shouldn’t be able to smell you either.

 _Not that demons can smell me_ , you remind yourself doggedly, adjusting the pile to sit more comfortably and trying to locate Charlie’s blonde braid through your tiny window of visibility.

You realize she has turned down a side street, one different from the way you came before, and you backtrack carefully, trying to follow her without losing control of your ponderous momentum. Vaggie steps around you, snickering, before you can follow after her with a beleaguered sigh. Your talons click irritably on the uneven pavement as the sidewalk merges with the alley concrete. The small window of your vision darkens considerably, and you step on something that crunches concerningly like glass under your foot.

The previous street had been fairly nice, when you think about it. Maybe it had just been a commercial district, those areas had generally been nicer on earth too, but this alley seems to take a hard turn into grimy disrepair, opening into a rather derelict narrow street that Charlie turns down. You can tell that you’re heading back towards the car, your innate sense of direction knows that much, and you can only assume that Charlie is taking some kind of a shortcut. You shift the bags again, vaguely considering moving some to balance on your head before deciding that your horns would likely get in the way.

Come to think of it, during your first night in the city you had noticed the weirdly sudden transitions between derelict blocks and fully commercialized, populated blocks. Running from Wonderland, you had zig-zagged through maybe mile of nearly empty streets and boarded-up storefronts before stumbling abruptly into a crowded strip. This sudden change in the street reminds you vaguely of that moment, changing suddenly between a relatively nice street and a grungy alley with no discernable transition or border.

Charlie and Vaggie turn onto a slightly longer but equally grimy street, and you catch in your limited periphery a group of cat-like demons slinking down a side street, regarding your little group with round reflective eyes. You are getting the impression that much of, perhaps even most of hell is like this alley, poorly kept, partially abandoned, mostly falling apart, with little islands of commercial success. Earth had been like that, on occasion, the poor and underclass barely a few blocks from the wealthiest areas. Proximity didn’t seem to bother the humans, as long as they didn’t have to look at the nearby squalor, demons seem to be similar. The whole effect is an uncomfortable mix of unsavory and pathetic.

You pause to shuffle your bags, and feel distinctly self-conscious as you watch a wooly little demon glance furtively at you while she scrambles to unlock her door, slamming it shut as soon as she slips inside. Every demon seems disinclined to get near your group, which is perhaps a blessing in disguise, but strikes you as yet more depressing. Distrust, suspicion, disrepair, these seem to be the staples of hell outside of the few flashy commercial areas.

The street curves slowly, and you can see distantly that it merges with a wider, cleaner lane that you recognize as the one with the H&L store. Charlie and Vaggie are a ways ahead of you, and you hurry a bit to catch up, trying to balance your armload of new clothes and jog at the same time.

You make it about a half dozen steps before your talons catch in some kind of cloth and send you very nearly completely sprawling. You manage to catch yourself on one knee, with a hissed intake of breath, but the top few packages balanced on your stack go spinning off onto the asphalt, pulling Charlie and Vaggie’s attention back to your fiasco.

You shift the remaining boxes into one arm, revealing a cowering spindly demon just to your left, clutching at the end of what is either a blanket of a very tattered sweater, the other end of which is tangled stubbornly in your claws. You blink, surprised that a whole demon managed to escape your notice. You think the demon is some sort of insect, but it’s hard to tell under the layers of baggy, tattered clothes. All you can really make out is a thin frame, barely half your size, and two huge unblinking black eyes, fixed on you. 

After a moment of mutual shock, you open your mouth to apologize, but the little demon beats you to it, releasing the scrap of fabric and raising its hands in a placating gesture.

“Sorry ma’am, I’m very sorry,” It rattles in a high pitched, squeaking voice, “very sorry, please forgive me.”

You blink again, and watch the little thing try to back away from you with an awkward shuffling motion, trying to gather its few grimy possessions into its cowering retreat.

“No, it’s fine,” You say, half out of instinct, and reach down with your free hand to untangle the fabric from your talons and hold it out to the crouching figure. The movement in its direction is small, barely a twitch, but the little thing bodily flinches away from you. The black compound eyes, a moment ago so oddly inhuman, suddenly crystalize into one obvious, universal emotion. 

Fear.

This little demon is terrified, cringing away from you and your partially outstretched hand. And for a moment, your vision doubles and you are looking at another scene entirely.

A different figure, cowering in a different corner. Grimy and scared, cringing away from a different figure. A taller figure, threatening, looming; and you, watching uselessly from a middle distance.

Your hand seizes around the scrap of fabric, an involuntary tensing as the demon’s face blurs into someone else entirely, the moment stretching out impossibly, like a dream.

And then, as a reality snaps back like an overdrawn rubber band, the little demon bolts, dropping its armful of possessions and scuttling away on four jointed legs and leaving you kneeling on the concrete, clutching a ruined scrap of what may once have been a sweater and blinking away the sting of threatening tears.

Charlie moves into your periphery before you can make yourself drop the piece of cloth, and you can feel her discomfort without even looking at her.

“Hey, uh, are you ok?” She asks hesitantly, as though even she isn’t sure if she’s talking about the fall you took, or something else.

You give yourself a mental shake and force your hand to unclench.

“I’m ok,” You say after a beat, finally turning to Charlie, who has a slightly scuffed pile of your dropped packages and a concerned expression, “That just surprised me.” You add, trying to sound reassuring.

Charlie extends a hand to you and steers you towards the end of the street. You feel the weight in your arms shift, and then Vaggie’s face appears, plucking the topmost bag off of your pile and wordlessly tucking it under one arm.

“Demons can be kind of…skittish, especially the ones in bad circumstances,” Charlie chips in, and you turn back to her, “When Vaggie and I were first trying to recruit for the hotel we spent literal days talking to demons, and most of them would just run when they realized we were coming towards them. I just mean, like, you didn’t do anything.” Charlie laughs awkwardly.

“People are scared of bigger demons, don’t think too hard about it.” Vaggie’s voice chips in, and you can hear her shrug.

You shift your weight, much lighter now divided between the three of you, and follow Vaggie out onto the wider boulevard. You can understand smaller demons, lesser demons being _skittish,_ as Charlie had put it. Power is brutally unequal in hell, you know that much from your short time in the extermination squads. The vast majority of demons are pathetically weak, and never acquire the means or, often, the lifespan to improve their prospects. 

Perhaps, given the presence of a larger, seemingly more powerful figure, most demons choose flight rather than risk a fight. You yourself had viewed every demon as a potential fight until…this morning?

 _Maybe I still do_ , you concede, but regardless, you can understand why a demon might have a reason to be wary.

 _But, that look_. The expression of sheer terror, abject fear, incomprehensible need to run away. It’s a look you’ve seen before. 

On the faces of the demons you had slain, mercilessly cut down, centuries before.

It was a look that you forgot, buried, ignored, in your decades of work in heaven and on earth.

And one you saw on the faces of humans, just once.

Fear of a monster.

It’s a look you never want to see again.

…

The ride home is mostly quiet, with Charlie and Vaggie chatting in their seats and you staring out the window, noting the schizophrenic frames of poverty and extreme wealth as the flit past your windows, seemingly at random. One after another, derelict buildings and flashy storefronts, grungy apartments and towering penthouses, flicking past dizzyingly. A some point you abandon your efforts to pick up a pattern, or even remember which streets are which, and resign yourself to the incoherent rush of scenery.

By the time you pull up to the gravel strip outside of the hotel it can’t be more than late afternoon, but you feel more than ready to crawl into bed. You wonder if it’s too late in the day for a cat nap.

Unloading everything from the car is yet another task, and one you insist on completing yourself, feeling a bit guilty for having Charlie and Vaggie carry half your things after you tripped in an alley and then scared some random demon half to death with your mere presence. No, you insist on carrying everything yourself, which seems like a strong and independent decision right up until you enter the hotel and catch sight of Alastor lounging with affected nonchalance against the bar, chatting to a visibly annoyed Husker. 

It’s at that moment that you resent the comically teetering pile of bags and boxes and who-knows-what-else stacked in your arms, for both making you look foolish, and, more importantly, ruining any plans you may have had to sneak quietly past the Radio Demon and into the warm embrace of your bed.

That plan dies on the doorstep, and you see as much as feel Alastor’s attention lock onto you, like a dog catching a scent. You aren’t sure you aren’t imagining things, but you think you even see his ears perk up.

You tense bodily, ready to be annoyed or threatened or _both_ , when Angel comes screaming up to you, cutting the Radio Demon off in his path.

“Out of the way Red, I have first dibs on _all_ new clothes in this place,” He shouts, waving Alastor aside with one of his many manicured hands and swishing up to you, seizing boxes off of your stack and twisting them for inspection. “H&L?” he clicks his tongue, “Basic babe, really basic. We all have to start somewhere I guess, but you’re better than this department store shit toots, _trust me_.”

Angel doesn’t even deign to look into the H&L bags, plucking them out and setting them aside like they had personally insulted him. You glance over at the bags, thinking of all the comfortable elastic leggings you had in there, and deciding, with more than a little attention to your restrictive corset, that Angel must just despise comfort.

“A-ha!” Angel cackles, uncovering one of the paper bags from the boutique. You hadn’t caught the name of the place when you had been inside, more concerned with talking to Vaggie and later, not dropping your armfuls of merchandise. You notice the minimalist logo on the bottom of the bag, a twirling letter T and then three bright red sixes, standing out in harsh relief against the cool gray.

“T-6 huh?” Angel asks, looking at the bag with a cocked eyebrow, “kind of bland babe, dontcha think? Fuckin’ turtlenecks and sweaters, and don’t you dare tell me that’s all ya bought!” Angel peers into the bag, crinkling the tissue paper as he rummages through the contents, looking disgusted at what you can only assume is an assortment of turtlenecks and sweaters. Angel seizes three more bags—plucking them out of your outstretched arms—to the same results, and begins to get visibly annoyed.

“What the fuck babe? You know there is shit other than ‘business casual’ in hell right? And what’s with all the high collars and shit? Yeah, bitch, no.” Angel looks up, glancing around the room, “I am callin’ dibs on the next shopping trip, alright? This kid needs help, and none of ya pussies have half my fashion sense.” Angel makes a pointed gesture towards Alastor, who seems vaguely offended, but no one seems interested in arguing. Not that the spider demon notices, as he kneels on the floor and continues to pull bags and boxes from your arms and sift through them with frequent _tsk’s_ and exclamations of “oh honey no” and “what the fuck is this nun shit?”

You try not to protest much, hoping that if you ignore Angel’s hovering you might make it to your room before dinner, but by the end of the pile you are getting antsy. He seems absolutely determined to sort through every single article of clothing you purchased, and you are once again questioning Charlie’s insistence that this was a “totally normal” amount of clothes to own. With every shirt Angel holds up, you become more and more certain that you will never have to do laundry again.

Your only faint blessing is that Angel ignored all the “department store shit” bags, which contained a wardrobe’s worth of underwear, which he would undeniably have critiqued for lacking red pinstripes and lace or something equally mortifying. Honestly, you love Angel and his enthusiasm, you really do, but this is an exhausting exercise to end a day of exhausting exercises. You are very near to making a run for it when Angel plucks one of the last few boxes from your arms and knocks the lid off with one careless finger.

And _squeals_.

You jump about a foot in the air, adrenaline spiking and nearly dropping the last few things in your grasp. Even Alastor’s ears twitch away from the shrill sound, and Husk groans audibly from the bar. You wonder if he has another _hangover_ , briefly, before deciding that dealing with Husk may be a little beyond you at the moment

“Toots, what the fuck is _this?”_ Angel practically shrieks, lifting your new jacket from the box and inspecting it.

In spite of yourself, you feel a flush rise on your face. You had chosen that jacket yourself, really the only thing you _had_ chosen off the racks, and not through Charlie’s endlessly patient proxy. You were proud of it, oddly, and even if shopping had been a bit of a chore, it was yours. Angel disapproving of most of the wardrobe doesn’t bother you, in fact you think it might mean that your attempts at conservatism were even more effective than you thought. But that jacket was something _you_ had picked out, and not for functionality or a high collar, but because you _liked it_.

 _I thought it was pretty_ , you realize, and weirdly, the thought embarrasses you, a new and very unfamiliar sort of vulnerability. 

You reach out to seize the thing from Angel, but he shoots to his feet and holds it out of your reach, grinning broadly.

“Angel, I’m really very tired from all this shopping, would you _please_ give me my jacket so I can take my things to my room?” You try for diplomacy, channeling Charlie and resisting the urge to sweep out Angel’s long legs and snatch the jacket.

“Nooooo way bitch, not until you explain what this _fabulous_ fuckin’ gem is doing in here and _why_ you were hidin’ it from me!” Angel holds the jacket up to himself, as if trying it on, although it is comedically tiny compared to his towering form.

 _He…likes it?_ Weirdly, the approval makes your blush deepen, ad you imagine that the pink tinge is showing through the thin feathers on your neck.

 _I thought it was pretty_ , you think again, and then recall a fact about crows on earth, big dark birds with the habit of collecting shiny objects that catch their interest. You look at the shiny brass buttons on the coat and feel suddenly like a very large, very silly bird.

Angel seems only to delight in your growing blush, and flashes you his needle-sharp grin.

“Damn you and your tiny ass, I would _so_ steal this shit!” Angel grabs you with one free arm, snatching the last few things out of your hands with the others before quickly twirling you into the jacket and holding you at arms-length.

“Holy shit babe you look almost-bangable in that!” He whistles, “We need some more of this _flavor_ in with this other shit.” He gestures forlornly to the pile of scattered clothes and gutted bags on the lobby floor.

You smile wryly, trying to weed the compliment out of his sarcasm. Angel, for his part, continues undeterred.

“Babe, I know the perfect place for you, really classy shit, yeah? And with some actual fuckin’ spice to it, not like this white-bread shit.” Angel babbles while he examines your jacket, turning you this way and that to examine the brass buttons and shoulder-pads and tassels. 

Exasperated, and very eager to be away from the center of attention—although Husk is, thankfully, taking a disinterested shot, while Charlie and Vaggie appear to have left the lobby altogether, so really you are just the center of Alastor and Angel’s attention—You duck under Angel’s grip and start frantically shoving things back in bags.

“Sure Angel, but I’m really tired, and I need to unpack all of this, so I’ll just…” you manage to rebuild your clumsy tower of packages, and start to back towards the stairs when you feel the feathers on the nape of your neck rise.

Freeze your retreat and tilt your head back, slowly, feeling your scalp prickle with static as Alastor’s smug grin comes into view. You are noticing a tendency for Alastor to stand _directly_ behind you, and that your neck is getting sore from constantly craning back to look up at him.

 _Not him too_ , you groan internally.

“Allow me to help,” He says, already plucking boxes off the top of your stack and balancing them on sharp fingers.

You open your mouth to protest when Angel sighs loudly, and you remember that you were originally trying to escape his clutches.

You crane your head around the nearest bag, stacked above your eye level, and smile apologetically at Angel.

“We can go shopping sometime, and you can pick out something, um, ’spicy’ for me then, ok?” You offer, trying to sidestep the Radio Demon as you speak.

Angel’s smile, which normally clocks in at a safely sharp-toothed but friendly, turns downright threatening, and you have a very distinct sense that you have just gotten yourself into something you are not remotely prepared for.

“I’m gonna hold you to that, sugartits,” Angel purrs, and pats your check as he walks past you to the couch, and you are left to momentarily consider the implications of suddenly feeling more afraid of shopping with Angel than being eaten by the general population of hell.

You shake your head, dislodging the thought, and step around Alastor’s looming presence, not bothering to argue with him.

Unsurprisingly, you hear his silly, pointy shoes tapping along the lobby floor after you, and another box disappears from the top of your stack. You decide to just avoid looking at him, hoping that if you can’t see him he can’t intimidate you.

“Darling,” Alastor croons just as you reach the stairs. On some level, you are surprised it took him that long to say whatever it is that he is following you to say. Distantly, you recognize that your annoyed exhaustion is making you dangerously unconcerned with Alastor’s intentions, but honestly you can’t even find the energy to be appropriately scared at this point. 

_I definitely need a nap_ , you decide.

“Darling?” Alastor says again, and you realize that you were drifting.

“Yes, sorry?” You reply without thinking, and then blink at your polite tone.

Alastor pauses a beat, maybe also surprised with your apology, but isn’t thrown for long.

“I hadn’t realized, when you said that the princess ‘needed you’ for the day, that you were planning to spend the day on the town.” You can almost hear him studying his nails in that affected way he has, and your brain finally musters the focus to make you briefly apprehensive.

You hadn’t _lied_ , per say. Had you really not mentioned that your “necessary” leave of work was for a shopping trip? The conversation seems like weeks ago, but its possible that you had left out that particular detail. 

You stare at the carpeted stairs under you for a moment, before you step onto the landing and shift your bags to one hip. You are close to your room, from the top of the stairs, and you have a fleeting insane urge to make a run for it.

 _Diplomacy._ You remind yourself, and try your very best to be diplomatic.

“I didn’t have any clothes. I was borrowing from Charlie and I didn’t want to _impose_ ” You use his word, and feel the static prickle up your arm, telling you that he is at least listening and not, say, reaching out with murderous intent. “I um, just **fell** recently.” You add.

You can’t help the weird significance the word has on your tongue, even though you know that all souls fall into hell, technically. You feel like you are edging a bit too close to the truth, but you don’t trust yourself to lie convincingly.

Alastor hums, a noise that harmonizes uncomfortably with his constant static aura and makes your teeth ache, but you keep walking.

 _Diplomacy_. You think again, and imagine that you are talking to Charlie, or maybe Vaggie, and muster all of your more familiar politeness.

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, I’m not used to this new…arrangement.” You try. It’s halfhearted at best, and you don’t _really_ think you’re all that sorry, but you suppose that you _could_ have run it by him before.

 _Except that I was digging through hotel blueprints all night_ , you think, annoyed, and bite the inside of your check to squash the feeling. You really _must_ be tired.

You pause at your door, and set the packages down, fumbling for your key, still not looking at Alastor.

“Ah, I had rather suspected you were _fresh_ ,” you can’t help but involuntarily flinch at his word choice, “you have that look about you, you know.”

 _No I don’t know,_ you snark internally, jamming your key into the lock and willing Alastor to walk away.

“I would appreciate a warning next time you take a day off, I’m not such a heartless monster that I wouldn’t allow my precious assistant a personal day,” You can literally hear his grin, and roll your eyes.

You get the door open, fully intending to slam it in his face, but freeze with your hand on the handle.

Stacked neatly on your bed is a pile of shopping bags. You double-take, and check the floor next to you where the bags you were carrying are still sitting. Then, finally, you turn to Alastor, who is leaning casually against the wall, hands empty, grin unbelievably self-satisfied.

“How did—“ You start to ask, looking back at the stack on your bed, undeniably the bags that Alastor had taken from you earlier, before consciously giving up and accepting that the Radio Demon simply enjoys pointlessly shattering the basic laws of physics.

“Anyways darling, I think it’s absolutely adorable that you and the other ladies are so close. See you bright and early tomorrow.” And, with a wink, he twirls on his heel and struts off down the hallway, coat tails swishing.

You take a moment to just stand in the doorway, processing the entire interaction. 

_That’s it?_ Had Alastor actually…was that him being _nice?_ Sure, he used some kind of magic trick to move your bags into your room, which heavily implies that he can enter your room even when the door is locked, which is actually incredibly concerning.

 _And makes the entire interaction we had this morning that much more farcical_ , you think ruefully, remembering how you had tried to escape back into your room.

But overall that was—not pleasant exactly, pleasant is a very _very_ long shot from any interaction with that predator—but maybe nonthreatening? Almost normal?

He had started out by calling out your “waste” of a day, but then he had just sort of…let it go? He had never just let anything go like that before, what could possibly—

 _Michael’s wrath_ , you realize, _diplomacy worked._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit longest shopping trip EVER lol. Sorry for that second, unannounced hiatus. I got in a minor car accident, and had a hell of a time dealing with the insurance (I really wish I didn’t have to commute to work lol), plus some neck pain afterwards and just didn’t feel up to writing, especially since my job is at a computer too. I’m all good now (except the inside of my car still kind of smells like the Chai tea I spilled literally everywhere), and the repairs to my car should be done by Thursday, yay! Honestly, I feel super lucky that no one got hurt, a sore neck and a busted fender are a very small price to pay. I always leave some extra space between me and the car in front of me on the highway back from work because sometimes the traffic stops suddenly, and I seriously believe that saved my life. Drive safe everyone, and seriously, don't tailgate other cars, its dangerous!
> 
> Anyways, let’s hope I’m back for good this time. Some other life updates, I have a final tomorrow, and then I am FREE, fully done with college! Not 100% sure what I plan to do after that, but at the very least I’ll have some more time for this beast of a story, so let’s hope no other insane life events happen. I hope you guys are doing OK, and I wanted to say a big thank you for everyone who has been patient with me this past month. You are all so sweet, seriously, you guys are my heroes, thank you for all the lovely comments and of course all of the Kudos and bookmarks! I love you all!!


	37. So Many Out-of-the-Way Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you get a head start on the day, with mixed results.

Chapter 32: So Many Out-of-the-Way Things

* * *

When you wake up, it is dark.

There is an odd moment where you don’t know where you are, when the murky red of the room and the twisted cocoon-like embrace of your sheets feels like you are in the lair of some horrible beast. Every looming, swirling shadow for a horrible second is a towering beast, blood red and angular, breathing hot fetid air over your skin.

But then, after a brief wave of blood boiling panic, your higher brain functions kick in, and your room snaps back into just an empty hotel suite, the hot breath just cold sweat on your skin, and the smoky red light just the late night glow of the city through your curtains. 

The blankets, though, those are indeed strangling you, and you make an awkward, slithering effort to disentangle yourself, peeling a seemingly endless amount of layers off of you and unwinding your old robe from one horn. You rub the silky fabric between two fingers and look down at your rumpled clothes, unchanged from your shopping trip. You are, in fact, fairly certain that you had collapsed onto your bed, on top of your blankets, and fallen straight to sleep, as confirmed by the unorganized pile of new clothes peering over the edge of your mattress. How you had managed to tangle yourself in the blankets is somewhat beyond you.

 _That’s rapidly becoming a pattern_ , you think, as you push yourself off the bed. Behind the curtains, the hellscape sky is a deep black, lit by a dim blood red pentagram. Idly, you scratch at your own pentagram brand under your shirt, and try to estimate the time. 

_I really need a clock for this room_ , you think idly, and then wonder if there might have once been one on the bedside table, before you had thrown the whole thing at Vaggie. You cringe, and sigh, figuring that it’s probably still very early morning, and survey the room. 

You feel fairly well-rested. Your brief introduction to your new sleep requirements has told you that you don’t need much sleep if you aren’t actively healing from, say, a stab wound. You feel as though you have slept for quite a while, at the very least through dinner if your protesting stomach is any indication, and the thought of crawling back under your sheets and sitting in the dark trying through the rest of the night is unsettling at best. Even so, it can’t be later than two or three AM, and the murky darkness is no comfort. You may be awake now, but the vaguely skin-crawling air of the hotel is never really gone, and the shadows still seem to loom tall. 

Giving yourself a little shake, you flip on the ceiling light on your way to the bathroom, resolving to start your day early, maybe bank on that sliver of good will you think you may have found in Alastor. 

Your clothes feel sticky as you peel them off, as if they are holding onto the grime of the city, and you realize with some horror that your wings have been pinned beneath your corset this entire time. You struggle to get the thing off, and, once free, your wings are completely numb and horribly stiff. You wince at the idea of touching the blackened skin, but eventually resign yourself to sitting on the bathroom floor and rubbing them, trying to work the blood back through your aching muscles and gritting your teeth through the pins and needles.

 _Let’s not leave the corset on all night again anytime soon_ , you think, grimacing when your finger grazes over a gaping hole in the flesh of your wing. The limbs are a part of you, obviously, but they are so maimed, touching them is like a ghostly reminder of your **fall** , the searing pain, your flesh melting and pulling away from you, heaven disappearing into a tiny dot in the reddening sky.

You push yourself up, dropping your stiff wings abruptly and turning to the shower. _There’s no point in thinking about it_ , you insist, and try to devote all of your attention to adjusting the temperamental faucet. The water seems to insist on being scaldingly hot or brutally cold, and getting to that lukewarm sweet-spot is always a struggle. 

Eventually, you resign yourself to an icy shower. The heat is a little too harsh on your skin, and worse, not harsh enough on the ruined nerves of your wings, where you can no longer feel the heat despite the ghost of the fire.

 _I’m starting this day off optimistically_ , you think wryly, hurrying through your shower routine. On the bright side, however, all of this self-pity does make your female body seem like far less of an issue. _Honestly_ , given the choice between your wings and your old body, you are certain you would take your wings, which, even a few days ago, is a choice you would have scoffed at. The lack of height, the feminine form, even the brand and the St. Peter’s cross, it had all seemed so terrible when you first woke up, but now, it all pales in comparison to the loss of your wings.

Out of your shower and wrapped in the oversized hotel towel, you can’t quite bring yourself to get dressed again. The idea of cramming your wings _back_ into the corset makes you want to scream, especially if it means facing the _entire_ day ahead with them tucked away after only a few precious minutes of ice-cold freedom. Frowning, you study yourself in the mirror. 

You seem so thin now, maybe because of your overall diminutive size, but your shoulders seem almost frail, bird-like in a way that has nothing to do with your downy neck feathers. 

You don’t like this, looking frail, _feeling frail_. You suppose it doesn’t much matter what you look like, but then again… You _feel_ small, even reaching your arms and wings out to either side and observing the span. Your towel, without you to hold it in place and a victim of your inability to knot it correctly, tumbles to the ground revealing your scarred stomach.

You trace the pink line where the Valiant spear had pierced your skin, still tight and new, but imperfect. You look at yourself again, and what you see is something _broken_. A bird without wings, a scarred, fragile thing just waiting to be hurt again.

You think of Charlie, holding her credit card comically out of your reach, and you too small to grab it and clumsy to even jump the small gap. _Because who needs to jump when you can fly_?

 _Well, I can’t fly anymore_ , you think resolutely, _It’s time to learn to jump instead_. You weren’t trained for decades to feel sorry for yourself, to lament your form or your shortcomings. You were an angel, 9th choir, a Dominion, an earth deployment no less. You earned that rank through your own divine sweat and blood and, you decide, looking at your new self in the bathroom mirror, you can do it again.

“I’m not going to wait to be broken.” You tell your reflection, speaking the words into being. _Broken is how Michael wants me_.

…

Admittedly, as an angel, you hadn’t really needed to work on your _physical_ prowess. Most angelic training is technical, learning how to handle weapons, how to exploit the weaknesses of demons, how to act as an army or a platoon. It had all been _skill_ that you needed to learn, but skill is not flammable. Skill had not burned away into ash in your **fall**. Technique did not bleed from you onto the grimy pavement. **Fallen** , you are no less skilled than you were as a divine being. 

What you are, is small, and really, depressingly weak. 

_Ok,_ you try to cut yourself some slack, flexing your talons into the carpet in frustration, you aren’t _that_ weak, but you are really, _really_ bad at jumping. 

You have a bag set up on the floor, as an obstacle, barely a foot high, but you can’t seem to clear the thing. _Which is absurd_. You just, really seriously have never needed to jump for anything other than a standing takeoff before—as evidenced by your ruined wings reflexively flailing every time your feet leave the floor—and somehow the timing is completely different when the jump _doesn’t_ end in flight. At least in Wonderland you had had some adrenaline to fuel your movements, and you were mostly vaulting one-handed over dead bodies anyway, but now you just can’t seem to get the hang of it.

Your first try sends you nearly sprawling when your instincts urge you to tilt your weight forward and flap, and on top of that you manage to punch an impressive hole in the bag with your talons before making an awkward sprawling landing.

The, It takes you almost two dozen tries before you actually make it _over_ the bag without inflicting damage, and even then mostly because you realize that you can tuck your feet and bend your knees since you don’t need your legs to steer your nonexistent takeoff.

Frustrated and vaguely winded, you switch to jumping onto and off of the bed, which seems a safer option than the desk all things considered, but proves equally confusing to your scrambled equilibrium. After that, you come up with a half dozen other movements that feel awkward without the support of your wings, mostly through trial and error. You are shocked at how hard it is to land without flapping, and get a few bruises letting yourself fall off the bed and trying to land on your feet. Getting up quickly is also difficult, especially when laying down, as you realize that you had a habit of pushing off the ground with your wing joints, which is both painful and difficult with your damaged musculature.

By the time you run out of basic motions to practice, you can tell that the sky outside is beginning to lighten, and you are feeling distinctly more energized. Your head is much clearer, and your wings have stopped aching from their long confinement, and on top of that you feel… _hopeful?_ It’s silly, considering you have spent most of the early morning practicing things like _getting up_ and _not falling on your face when jumping_ , but you can’t help but feel like you are making progress _towards_ something. You didn’t realize how much you missed physical activity after losing your flight and being all but bed-ridden for days with your injuries, but even these simple exercises have you almost cheery.

You make a mental note to find something that approximates a weapon, so that you can work in some familiar training drills, and decide to make this a morning routine.

Your stomach growls loudly, jolting you from you grand plans and reminding you that you did, in fact, miss dinner, and are, in fact, still naked and therefore in no condition to rummage through the kitchen.

Patting your stomach with something like sympathy, you break into your stash of new clothes, intending to grab something quickly and head downstairs. Your clothes, however, are a mess, unfolded by angel and stuffed haphazardly back into bags, and don’t seem nearly forthcoming in producing anything like an _outfit_ , so you resign yourself to organizing, putting things on the empty hangers in your closet and flat in drawers. You hadn’t believed Charlie about the sheer volume of things, but once it is all put away, it seems like much less. Your hanging clothes barely fill have the wardrobe, and two of your drawers are completely empty.

 _Or,_ you reason, _demons have too many clothes_ , and nod definitively as you pluck out something like an ensemble. You have some thin shirts now, to go between you and your _bustier_ , which is sweet relief to your chaffed wings, and makes the “wingless” effect somewhat more convincing, and with a pair of slacks and a pale yellow button-down you look almost like any other demon.

 _Actually I look a bit like Charlie,_ you think, spinning in front of the mirror on your wardrobe, before deciding that there are many worse things to look like and walking out your door with the confidence born of a single-minded desire for food.

Working up a sweat under the fluorescents in your room, you had somewhat forgotten just how absurdly early in the morning it was, but in the hallway, where the early rose light of morning can barely touch the carpets, the hotel suddenly seems very empty. The dark hallway, filed with hazy redness, reminds you distinctly of Vaggie hiding under her covers and swearing over her interrupted sleep, and for a second it’s like the entire hotel rolls over and sighs in exhaustion, unwilling to wake up. 

You quiet the laugh that bubbles up and lock your door, apologizing internally to the dark hallway for barging in at this ungodly hour and head quietly for the stairs. 

The lobby itself is oddly silent without the seemingly constant presence of Husk at the bar and Angel lounging on the couch, and you find yourself actually enjoying the peace. At the very least, you find it relaxing not to worry about if Alastor is in the kitchen, plotting to murder whoever would dare come through the door. 

In fact, you haven’t really had a moment to explore the kitchen yet, what with the Radio Demon’s intense territoriality and your nearly killing Husk the other night, and the new room is oddly fascinating. You can’t quite figure out the function of most of the things you see, but do recognize a few kitchen implements, namely pots and pans that don’t seem to have changed much over your near century of time on earth. You browse the cupboards absently for a while, pulling out a plate and cup without any real sense of what you plan to eat, before you uncover a depressingly barren pantry.

 _What has Alastor been cooking with this entire time?_ You wonder, turning over a nearly empty jar of something called “peanut butter” and rattling a crumpled cereal box. Eventually, you give up and head for the fridge, hoping for some scraps from last night’s dinner, or at least something obviously edible—which, you aren’t sure, strictly speaking, that everything in the kitchen _is_.

The fridge, like the pantry, is mostly empty, sporting a few wilted-looking apples and a single gallon jug of some kind of juice, which makes thing in the center of the fridge stand out all the more.

There on the middle shelf, heaping with what looks like at least five different dishes, is a dinner plate. The whole affair is covered with a glass dome, on which is leaning a note with “please eat” written in neat cursive. You blink at the plate stupidly for a moment, briefly confused by its elaborate presence in the middle of an otherwise derelict food situation, before realizing that Charlie must have saved you a plate from dinner the night before, when you didn’t come to eat.

Practically drooling, you grab the plate and hop up onto the kitchen island, not bothering to grab utensils as a certain static-ridden overlord wasn’t here to chastise your poor manners as you opt to simply shovel the food into your mouth with one hand.

You are several bites into something that you can only identify as “meat” when you realize that that note had not, in fact, been written in Charlie’s handwriting. You try to imagine Vaggie’s penmanship from the note you saw her write in the margins of a newspaper the other day, but can’t picture it. Chewing thoughtfully on the yet-unidentified chunk of meat, you shrug and make a mental note to thank Charlie later, before diving wholeheartedly into your unexpected feast.

…

The food doesn’t last long under your ravenous interest, and before long you are sitting on the empty counter in nothing but a pile of crumbs. Unsure of where the plate goes, you opt to wash it and the glass dome in the sink and leave it on the counter before retreating back to the main lobby. 

The clock on the wall, which you hadn’t bothered to check on the way down, reads a quarter to six which, by your estimate, means you have at least three hours before Vaggie even considers leaving her bed, and slightly more than that before Alastor expects you to report for work.

And really, it’s not that you _want_ to get to work, mapping the hotel seems a tedious task already, though you have done little more than some background research, but after exercising and eating you genuinely can’t think of another way to spend your time _besides_ exploring the hotel, and mapping while you do that seems only logical. In the end, you tell yourself that you are just trying to finish your assignment and get away from the Radio Demon as soon as possible, and retrieve your small pile of materials to start mapping the first floor. 

Of course, since you already have the rough blueprints, all you really need to do is confirm that the layout on the paper you have is the same as in the building proper, but based on the drawings the ground floor looks to be a _lot_ bigger than you had originally thought. In fact, in your head the ground floor is made up entirely of the lobby and kitchen, all placed before the central staircase, but logically you know that the building must continue backwards, since the second floor exists mainly on that side of the spiraling central stairwell. In fact, if the staircase is really in the “middle” of the building as it seems to be, that would logically leave space for a large room on its other side, which the blueprints have depicted and labelled generically as a “ballroom.”

The entrance isn’t terribly difficult to find once you realize that a hallway extends past the kitchen door and around the curved bevel of the central stairs. Following it, you find a large set of double doors, marked on your blueprint, and push past them.

You are vaguely familiar with the concept of a ball, having heard it tossed around in human dialogue on earth, but the expectation in your mind of a “gathering space” wholly unprepared you for the beautiful room you step into. The ballroom is stunning, with delicate archways punctuating a wide, airy space. 

You take a minute to admire the beautiful murals covering the ceiling before you realize that, much like a church on earth, the paintings tell a continuous story, what appears to be the Temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. The progression wraps around the room, clockwise, and you follow them, watching the familiar story play out with a few notable differences. Most obviously, both Adam and Eve have been painted rather like dirty unkempt forest dwelling people, rather than pristine occupants of a paradisal garden, which seems rather petty. Beyond that, you spot a well-dressed feminine figure in the back of many of the scenes, laughing as the snake offers Eve the Apple of Knowledge, and waving goodbye as the couple walks into the desert, banished from Eden. 

_That must be Lilith_ , you realize. You had heard stories, naturally. There are some…aspects, of hell that are kept rather hushed in Heaven, things which everyone knows but no one speaks. Lilith especially is a sort of black spot on heavenly reputation. The first woman, a failure? And without a temptation like the poor foolish Eve? Suffice to say, Lilith was one of the few heavenly unmentionables, stuffed in the same cupboard as the St. peter’s cross and the handful of Cain’s children that managed to sneak through the cracks.

Just looking at her depicted in the mural has you a bit jumpy, as though you are a new recruit and your Archangel overseer is going to burst through the door and reprimand you at any second. The feeling is vaguely uncomfortable, so you move on to other areas of the room looking for distraction.

Unfortunately, for how strikingly beautiful the space is, there is next to nothing actually _in_ the ballroom, just a few ancient-looking chairs stacked in a far corner and a single hulking shape covered by a tarp. 

Intrigued, you wander towards the thing, circling it to get a sense for the shape before realizing, suddenly, that it is a grand piano. Delighted, and thinking of the music you had heard one earth, you find the front edge and grope under the tarp for the piano bench. Oddly, you notice that the forward end of the tarp is, unlike the rest of the thing, absent of dust, looking as though someone had recently cleaned or disturbed it. Your bare feet grit slightly on the floor, and you look down to notice some dust, kicked up as if by footsteps.

You shrug, and pull the tarp back to expose the shiny black surface of the piano underneath. It takes you a moment to figure out how to open the cover to find the keys, but when you do the effect is dizzying. 

Watching humans play instruments had always made them seem so easy, even those big organs that the old cathedrals seemed so fond of, the player simply tapped out a pattern and then there was music. It seemed simple. But looking at the keys, an unbroken jumble of black and white, you realize that there is no _obvious_ way to discern what pattern you should be pressing to produce music. The only pattern you can see is a repetition of seven white keys and five black keys over and over again. You wonder if maybe the keys are some kind of cipher.

You press one, hesitantly, and nearly flinch when the piano makes a responding noise. In the open, silent room, the single note seems far too loud, and you worry distantly about waking up the rest of the house before deciding to risk it. 

Sitting down at the bench, you stare at the repeating pattern for a few minutes until you find the same key, one repetition higher on the piano and press it. The noise is similar, but distinctly higher pitched, and you nearly laugh at the effect. 

You spend a few minutes experimenting, finding the same note in each repetition of the pattern up and down the piano and marveling at the sweet sounds filling the room, all the same and yet slightly different. You think perhaps you understand the basic principle, seeing the piano as rather like language, with repeating variations of each note, but you can’t quite make out the pattern that is music. You feel rather like you do when you listen to Angel talk, able to identify all the words and emotions but losing the real meaning in all of the strange nonsensical idioms. 

Feeling brave, you choose to random keys and press them together, pleased at the more complicated sound. You try a few more combinations, and then run your hand up and down the central incidence of the pattern once, pressing every key in succession and grinning at the effect.

You are about to try and use the black keys when something dark moves vaguely in your periphery and ghosts along your cheek, as though a person were leaning over your shoulder to look at the keys, their hair just brushing against your face. Panicking, you attempt to stand, only to slam your knees into the underside of the piano with an echoing thump forcing you to instead scoot with your hands down the bench, wincing in pain.

Blinking your second eyelid, you stare at the space where a moment before you had been certain someone was standing, but see nothing except the swimming shadows of the ballroom, darkening the wall with something like sinister intent. The feathers on your neck stand up and you swing around to look at the rest of the room, only to find it similarly dark and empty. 

No one is here, no one was here a moment ago.

Somehow, and perhaps it is just your imagination, carrying out the last aborted note on the piano, you think you can almost hear crackling laughter, like the room itself is mocking you.

Rubbing your bruised knees anxiously, you push yourself up from the piano and lower the wooden key cover, then replace the tarp, watching a cloud of dust drift lazily down to the floor. You don’t bother looking back as you snatch up your blueprints and leave the room, slamming the swinging doors on the darkness behind you.

…

The rest of your early morning explorations are not nearly so alarming, and the only other room on the blueprints that you don’t recognize is unlabeled. Charlie had called it “storage,” which lives, anticlimactically, up to its name. The musty space appears almost completely filled with an assortment of decaying pieces of the hotel, including what you assume are the rest of the chairs from the ballroom, and what you eventually identify as a dismantled dining table, presumably one that formerly occupied the space where Charlie had so creatively build a replacement out of boxes.

Notably, most of what you see strikes you as too decrepit to use, and generally too broken to have been kept in the first place, and after only a few minutes of inspection, you pin a note to the blueprint page reminding you to suggest to Charlie that someone clean the space out. The room appears fairly large, despite the inadequate lighting, and you think that maybe it was used for something else before becoming the default “mostly broken furniture” storage area.

 _How big is this thing anyways?_ You think, trying to spot the back wall in the reddish gloom. The blueprints make the space look nearly as big as the kitchen, which sits on the opposite side of the stairs, but that seems excessive, surely there can’t be _that_ much assorted junk in this hotel that needs storage?

You glance over your shoulder at the stacked covered paintings, still leaning against one wall, which Charlie has been in the process of rehanging after Alastor repaired the lobby with a casual wave of his hand. Charlie has re-hung a dozen already but there seem to constantly be more stashed in every awkward corner of the space.

 _Maybe there really is that much_ , you think, and make a, in retrospect, rather stupid decision. Turning, you set your blueprints down by the door in a neat pile, and then prop the storage door open with one of the dining chairs, before ducking your head into the dark room and trying to work your way in. For the first few feet you can walk, as much of the stuff is pushed to the walls and in boxes or wrapped in tarps, but it’s not long before the “storage” becomes more haphazard, as though things have been shoved towards the back by the addition of yet more things by the door. Eventually, you are crawling over lumpy tarps and crumbling chairs just to move forward. Logically, you think there must be a window in here, but it is either boarded up or covered by the piles of random things because the only light source you can make out is from the propped open door. More than once you hear something skitter along the floor and you imagine some kind of hellish mutant rats living among the junk.

 _Thankfully I still have good vision_ , you think, silently praising Michael for not thinking to take that from you along with all your other formerly useful attributes. 

The further _in_ to the closet you get, the slower your progress, and the more your realize that this room really is _big_ , perhaps even as big as the blueprints suggest, and filled with all sorts of random items. You wince as your shin collides with a stack of paintings, toppling them over and into the empty scaffold of a dresser with its drawers removed.

 _Who would even bother to keep that?_ You think sourly, pausing for a moment to get your bearings. You think you have been moving in a straight line, and the door is still clearly visible behind you, a pale orange square in the gloomy darkness. The far wall _should_ be nearby, if the blueprints are correct. Near you, the skittering sound comes again, followed by a series of quiet squeaking noises, drawing your attention off into the gloom.

One moment, you are blinking into the desaturated gray of the storage room, and the next there is a loud scraping sound and you are thrown into darkness. _Absolute darkness_.

Your first instinct is to go back towards the door, but you don’t take more than a step before you run bodily into some kind of low table which bends you over double with an audible gasp. Wheezing you try to reevaluate.

Your next instinct is to calm down and wait for your eyes to adjust, blinking both eyelids into the darkness and counting the seconds, hoping something will resolve itself. After a moment, the pitch black does seem to lighten slightly, revealing the vague outline of the thing you just walked into, but not much else. You realize that there is, in fact, a window in this room, as a vague murky light seems to be coming from your left, but you don’t have a clear sense of where it is in the stacks of garbage.

Your third thought, and one that you suspect you might have done well to think of sooner, is to call for help. Teamwork has never been your forte, even in heaven you had mostly pursued solo ventures, and being in hell this last week has certainly done _nothing_ to encourage you to call for help when vulnerable.

But then again, really, how vulnerable does being stuck in a closet make you? Calling for help is reasonable, in this situation, isn’t it?

“Hello?” You try, voice cracking. You cough and try again, “Hello? Is anyone out there?”

Silence. You think maybe you can hear movement from the lobby, but it’s hard to tell with all of the tarps and blankets muffling any sound.

“Did someone close the door? I’m in here, hello?” You try again, still not used to your loud voice. Dominions are quiet spoken, as a rule, which admittedly was an improvement on the Archangels, who have their mouths sewn shut to encourage patience and introspection. Getting the stitching out had been a relief at your promotion to 9th choir, but speaking had still been awkward, and you had been particularly quiet, even for your class. 

After your **fall** , your voice was much louder. You still find the volume startling. 

Sighing, you cover your ears with your hands and shout at the top of your lungs.

“HELLO? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?” Then you listen. There is more of that distant muffled movement. If someone is in the lobby, they don’t seem to have heard you.

Then you hear the scuffling noise again, much closer this time, and realize that, perhaps, shouting in a room filled with unidentified animals was not the best plan.

Blinking rapidly in the vain hope that your vision will correct itself, you make a split second decision between trying to locate the window and returning to the door, before opting to retrace the vague path you had cleared on your way in. Around you, and more concerningly, above you, the skittering noise increases, and you hear furniture shifting slightly, as though bumped by something shoving past.

 _How big are these things?_ You panic internally, struggling over something irregularly shaped and sharp-edged, catching the drop cloth on your foot.

At some point your shin bumps something cool and fuzzy that seems to flinch and scurry away at your touch. At another point you swear that you feel something bite at your ankle, although not with enough force to break through the scaley skin there.

 _Divine spirit guide me_ , you pray internally, knocking a chair with your knee and stumbling halfway to the ground. _Or undivine spirit_ , you correct, ducking under a lamp and feeling for the wall with one hand, _or whatever spirit now has authority over my damned soul, I’ll take any providence_.

You hand finds the wall, after grabbing something with _way too many legs_ that _hisses_ when you fling it away, and you follow the wall with one hand, feeling for the door handle with the other. Things are more open on this side of the room, and your progress is faster, outpacing the tapping feet of whatever is chasing you. Your hand brushes the door handle as you move, and you almost mistake it for some discarded knickknack before you realize what it is and backtrack to stand in front of the door. You rattle the handle once, but the door seems stuck or locked somehow, and the handle won’t budge. Frustrated you lean your ear against it and listen.

This close, you can more clearly hear the noises from the lobby, things being moved, maybe even footsteps, and something muted that sounds oddly like humming.

You don’t stop to think about this in any great detail, and instead knock furiously on the door for several seconds before pausing again to listen.

The sounds pause, and you faintly hear what you think are footsteps. Are they approaching the door? You can’t tell.

“Hello?” You shout again, putting your face up to the wood, “Is someone out there? Please let me out, I’m trapped in here.”

The footsteps grow more clear, definitely approaching the door, and the humming resolves itself too, into a peppy, scratchy, old-fashioned tune distorted by static.

_Alastor?_

“Oh dear, darling have you gone and locked yourself in the closet?” Alastor’s voice comes from the other side of the door, stifling laughter.

 _Of course it’s Alastor._ You freeze, trying to reign in your sudden boiling anger.

Had he—Did he lock you in here? For what? A prank? You had felt like you made progress last night, like diplomacy had really worked.

It occurs to you that perhaps he had not, in fact, been won over by your fledgling diplomatic skills. It occurs to you that maybe, just maybe, the Radio Demon is capable of holding off on his childish revenge until the opportunity presented itself. Admittedly you had not considered him the type to wait on any impulse for longer than it took to get the attention of anyone nearby, but maybe you had underestimated him.

 _Maybe_ , crawling into a dark closet without anyone to hold the door, knowing that he was in the hotel and very possibly plotting some kind of cartoonish revenge, was a very _very_ stupid idea.

Your train of thought is interrupted by the growing noise from deeper in the closet, the advance of a thousand tiny legs towards you. Had Alastor known that this closet was filled with…whatever these things are when he locked you in here?

“Darling, if you want me to let you out just ask nicely.” He purrs through the door, and you can just picture his smug face near the lock, as though bending down to your level. 

He wants you to ask _nicely?_ You feel like you might start hyperventilating.

You think about all of the diplomacy you had planned, all the polite “thank you’s” and “excuse me’s” and “sorry’s” that you had been so eager to deploy to manipulate your target, and you want to punch the you of yesterday square in the jaw.

 _But, diplomacy_ , an increasingly tiny part of your brain insists. You had made a plan, and now here you were going to throw it away because of some dark room.

Something runs across your foot and you kick it away savagely, hearing it hit the wall with a satisfying _crunch_.

“Alastor, would you open this door for me?” You ask again, trying to lower your tone, trying to be diplomatic, trying with every fiber of your unholy being not to rain fire on the smug demon on the other side of the door. 

“What’s the magic word?” He asks, voice like hot butter melting straight through the cracks in the door, scalding your skin where it drips.

You lose it. 

Taking a step back, and kicking aside another tiny, furry thing, you crouch and then swing one leg up, slamming your foot into the door just next to the handle and snapping the deadbolt through the wood frame with one savage kick. The door springs open, swinging through its arc and cracking into the wall, no doubt punching a hole in the wallpaper. 

You don’t even look at Alastor, standing just a centimeter away from where the door had swung open, before dashing through the opening and clawing the door shut behind you. 

You feel something bite your foot again, still failing to break the skin, and look down to see what looks a bit like a rat, but with _way_ too many legs and at least 6 extra eyes clustered around its face, gnawing at your foot with a pair of insect-like mandibles. You spin around and open the door just a crack, hearing scuttling feet and seeing thousands of eyes reflecting in the darkness, before kicking the spider-rat off of you and into the closet, and slamming the door behind it, leaning your head against the battered frame with a sigh of relief.

Finally, after a second to come down from your adrenaline high, you turn to look at Alastor, still standing just out of the door’s reach, looking blankly at you with a plastered on smile, his monocle hanging askew. When your eyes meet his, it’s like he breaks from whatever shock he was in and his smile ratchets up several big degrees, into something wholly sinister.

“It appears we have rats!” He says, delighted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the slight delay on this one. I got some feedback on my last chapter that things with Alastor felt a little forced, and while I had a plan for it, I wanted to shuffle around events so it was addressed in this chapter rather than the next one, so I had to work through some rewrites. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter and have a very Happy Holidays.   
> As of right now I plan to have another chapter up for Friday, which is Christmas day, since it’s just me and my parents this year for obvious reasons, but sometimes things happen around the holidays, lol. Additionally, I am toying with the idea of a Christmas/NYE special, which, if I did do, would probably come out around the 31st/1st, and would be a LOT shorter than my Halloween special lol. This could also just be a generic “winter” special, if that feels more inclusive to you guys, for the idea I have it wouldn’t necessarily have to be “Christmas” specific. Be sure to let me know your preferences!   
> Anyways, keep an eye out for that (I would say 60% forecast of special episode), which I will probably post as an extra chapter on this story rather than another work since it won’t be super long (if all goes according to plan).  
> In other news, I got my car back from the repair place which is exciting! I actually witnessed another car accident on Sunday, thankfully no one was hurt, but it just goes to show that near the holidays driving is WAY more dangerous. Seriously guys, be careful out there!   
> Have a happy holidays/ Merry Christmas / late Hanukkah/ early New Years / other winter celebrations to everyone! Love you all!


	38. Which is to be Master  (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays!  
> In this chapter, you play a game.

Chapter 33: Which is to be Master (Part 1)

* * *

The door is most certainly broken.

A chunk of the wooden frame, carved into a spiraling botanical design, is on the floor in front of you. Around it is a pile of splinters. You are going to have to apologize to Charlie about that.

You can feel the door shift loosely on its hinges, and you are decently certain that if you don’t wedge something under the bottom it will swing open again. Accordingly, you are forced to stay pressed against the door, or else risk the horde that you can feel scratching against the wood at your back flooding over your feet again, which is not a sensation you are eager to feel twice. 

Unfortunately, this position is seriously undermining the daggers you are attempting to stare at Alastor. You think you are looking more pathetic than intimidating, but you work with what you have.

“Alastor, did you lock me in that room?” You ask slowly. Yesterday, when Alastor had seemed very close to biting through your arm, you had thought that you were hurtling quickly towards a breaking point, a point where you do something you can’t readily take back. You are beginning to get that feeling again.

Alastor looks scandalized, clutching one dark hand to his chest and waving another in the air as though to shoo the implication away.

“Darling I would never even consider doing such a thing. I merely returned the dining chair back to its proper place. How was I to know you were skulking about in that unused broom closet?” Alastor’s smile is unbelievably condescending, even through his mock-indignation, and the whole charade does nothing to quell your simmering anger.

 _He’s so smug_. You seethe, and wonder if you could hit him hard enough to break that stupid little monocle and still have time to run for your life.

You decide that now would be a good time to call up those breathing exercises you learned as a rookie. Sure, they’re for battle, but this feels a _lot_ like a battle from where you’re standing.

Alastor bends down slightly as you suck in your breath, holding it and counting to seven. He has a habit of bending over you, which ordinarily is intimidating but at your level of murderous range just seems annoying, and that is _before_ he extends one dark hand to pat you on the cheek, and your breath leaves you in a startles _hiss_.

The gesture is…odd, and you feel your anger take a stutter-step as you try to place the strangeness. Normally, when Alastor touches you, the threat is implicit, the contact meant to express his superior strength, his ruthless nature, his desire to bite your arm off at the wrist, that sort of thing. This, however, lacks the intimidating punch. Sure, it’s condescending, Alastor has worked up a strong pattern of treating you like a child, or perhaps a small dog, and patting your cheek fits right in with that habit, but there’s no _violence_ behind it.

And weirdly, the lack of threat throws you off your axis, and you have a baffling moment in which you are laser focused on the texture of his hand on your face. His gloves are, well, part of him, that much you know, but you haven’t actually thought about the implication of that strange defect. His hand is a bit like leather, like a glove might be, but also oddly, grotesquely alive, radiating heat as it caresses your cheek.

The sensation is at once weirdly intimate, like stumbling across a sleeping grizzly bear and knowing that you have no right to be in proximity to such a deadly thing without mortal terror, but also deeply uncanny. Alastor’s skin is at once _skin_ and something that is nothing at all like skin, and when you slap his hand away it’s almost more motivated by discomfort than anger.

Then the fact that you _slapped his hand away_ catches up with you and you check his face for signs of, well, more psychopathic glee than normal. Thankfully, Alastor’s good humor seems unfazed, and he merely straightens up, grinning manically and fidgeting with his bowtie.

“ _Tsk,_ darling, you really must be more careful, who knows what strange things might be lurking in an old hotel like this one?” Alastor rests his chin on one hand, looking at you with theatrical pity. You don’t look too closely at _that_ particular statement, as the moment of discomfort and brief fear is gone and replaced once again with _anger_ and the fact that he _locked you in a closet_ ad some sort of childish riposte for missing work yesterday. You open your mouth to say something entirely ill-advised about his childish attitude and his obnoxious attempts to anger your further by denying blame—

 _Wait_.

You feel a lightbulb go off above your head, and like Moses parting the sea, the way ahead of you is suddenly perfectly clear. 

_The childish games, the good mood, the playful touching._

Alastor _enjoys_ this.

 _Michael in heaven it really is a riposte_ , as you realize, slightly aghast, Alastor is treating this like a fencing match, a game. All of the stupid power plays, the snide comments, the vague threats. _He’s not trying to intimidate he’s trying to provoke_. You aren’t sure when the transition from “stomach churningly powerful despot” to “stomach churningly powerful child with a new toy,” happened, or even if there _was_ a transition or if you had simply been reading into his antics, but the implication is brutally obvious.

 _He wants to get a rise out of me_.

You realize, in a moment of perfect nauseating clarity, that not only is this whole affair with the hotel and being your overseer and assigning menial tasks—all of it—a source of entertainment for this criminally powerful _toddler_ , it’s a _literal_ game.

 _That’s why he was so polite last night, he was trying to lower my guard so that whatever he pulled today would be all the more infuriating_. Alastor is playing basic strategy with your _emotional state_.

 _Every time I nearly lost my temper_ —Here you had thought you were being perfectly discreet, but you suspect now that Alastor saw right through you from the start, and for whatever reason, wanted to draw it out.

 _He’s waiting for me to snap_. Maybe he does just want an excuse to kill you, but now you realize that he’s enjoying the chase on its own. You have never felt more like a mouse before a cat, knowing that the cat is deadly, but more so that it wants to play with its food.

You blink at Alastor, reorienting yourself under the weight of this new, _vital_ conclusion, and his smug, self-assures smile reminds you strikingly of another face, one paler, framed by pristine white hair and spiraling horns, grinning down at you.

_“And what would you have us do, **K̷̹͍am̸̳͎̈́͒ȧ̶̻̰ȅ̸̟͂l̵͋͜** ,̴̣͛̚?” His voice is like rain, melodic and quiet until it falls thunderous on the unlucky below. It is everywhere at once, seeping into your cracks, through your clothes, into your head. _

_He wants you to speak, to defend yourself to the gathering crowd, to make them understand._

_This is your chance, your chance to change things, to make things right, better._

You had been naïve with Michael, to think that he wanted your words, your actions, your thoughts. He had just wanted to toy with you, all of it was just to squeeze the last vital drop of entertainment from your flesh before tossing you away. 

_Alastor wants to play a game with me?_ You almost feel sorry for him, because you’ve done this before, and this time, you aren’t playing.

You look at Alastor squarely.

“Oh, of course, silly of me to use the dining chair like that, I should have known you would make such a simple mistake.” You curl your face into a smile, and honestly, it feels good, it feels like kicking Alastor straight in the teeth, simply by depriving him of what he wants. Your anger.

Alastor twitches slightly, tilting his head to study you, and you hope he can see the anger evaporating off of you like steam, watch it slip through his creepy leathery fingers.

“Anyways, I have the upper floors to get started on before breakfast, I have to make up for lost time you know.” You look up at him, batting your eyelashes in the best impression of sweet, mild compliance that you can muster, “And Alastor _darling,_ do fix the door, if you would be so kind.” His trademark pet name feels like ammonia on your tongue but it seems to do the trick, Alastor seems thrown, disappointed even.

 _Yeah that’s right, I’m disappointing._ You think smugly, and then, with a flounce, you step away from the broken closet door and straight past Alastor, unleashing a tidal wave of spider-rats towards his perfectly-shined shoes. 

Behind you, you hear his fingers snap once, and that sound is like a hail Mary.

You don’t look back to check on the door, nor when you hear Alastor mutter something under his breath, instead you snatch up your materials from the floor and head straight up the central stairs. It is, after all, barely eight AM by the lobby clock, and you have things to do.

Behind you, and well out of earshot, Alastor says something to himself, something which might have given you pause were you there to hear it. 

Because Alastor, standing in front of the still-broken door, secured with a single board hammered across its front, is smiling.

“What fun.” He says, although no one is there to hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, and Happy Holidays! I decided to split this chapter up even though this chunk is so short just because this interaction flows so well on its own and feels very final. Next part will be up on Monday, and probably a good deal longer. Thank you all again for all the comments, I try to read and respond to all of them!   
> Thats all for now!


	39. Which is to be Master  (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In This Chapter, you continue with your work, not without a few surprises.

Chapter 33: Which is to be Master (Part 1)

* * *

Your newfound devil-may-care (Oh, that one is good, you are going to have to use that one more often) attitude lasts you all the way until the second floor landing, where you are once again faced with the realty of your actual job.

You do _live_ on the second floor, for all intents and purposes, but you don’t exactly spend significant amounts of time outside of your room. The discovery of the balcony the other day still has you confused and vaguely suspicious of your sense of direction. And, quite honestly, standing at the top of the stairs, you aren’t sure where to start. The bottom floor had been easy, all things considered, really it was just comparing things to a map you already had made. _And getting locked in a closet but, such is the nature of hell,_ you sigh internally, looking down the hallway with some reluctance.

 _Oh come on its just a map, just pick a side and get it over with._ With a shrug, you shuffle your notebook open to a blank page and try to sketch a hallway, bisecting the page, marking an “X” and labelling it “stairs,” before walking off to your right, towards yours’s and Charlie’s room. The first room you pass is “231” and then a few more doors down until you find you own room, 221, and then all the way to the end of the hall to Charlie and Vaggie’s room, 201. You hadn’t really thought about it before but the second floor seems only to have odd numbered rooms, which means there are only 15 rooms on your side of the floor.

 _Although_ , you pause in front of Charlie’s door, and look backwards down the crooked hallway, then walk back the few dozen meters and recount.

You go through the rooms, checking off the odd numbers in your head, 231…229…227…past your own room and towards Charlie’s, 219…217…213

213?

You glance at the blank wall behind you, and then again at the smooth wallpaper between 217 and 213. You even tap on the wall lightly, pressing one ear against the cool surface, as though you could hear an entire hidden room back there. 

_There’s no 215_? You look around yourself blankly, as though Charlie might pop out of the carpet and explain to you the lack of one whole hotel suite, but help doesn’t seem forthcoming. You briefly, and insanely, consider looking for the room, like a lost knick-knack that might turn up behind the couch cushions, before realizing how absurd that is. Clearly, the room has always been missing from the hallway, or whoever made the numbered plaques had forgotten 215. Or maybe they just didn’t like the associated bible verse. 1 John 2:15 did have some conflict to it, especially as an artisan.

_Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them._

That was probably it…even though this is hell and you doubt anyone down here as the kind of encyclopedic knowledge of bible verses that you have, enough to justify an aversion to random numbers. 

But, then again, you know a few more biblically literate humans that had a nice cozy spot reserved for them down here. 

You are certain that you are overthinking this.

You stare at the empty spot on the wall for a few more moments, not entirely convinced and with a persistent itch at the base of your horns, before noting the lack of room 215 on your paper and continuing on down the hall. It had occurred to you to label your map wit big areas listed as “rooms 201-231” or something to that effect, but if the missing doors are a consistent occurrence, that might be a bit of a pain.

Then again, how accurate does a map of the hotel need to be? So one of the rooms is missing, if it doesn’t exist than it’s not like anyone will be assigned that room, and then, logically, no one would be looking for it.

This is all beginning to give you a headache. Overwhelmed, you flip back through your notebook to your “strategy” page and read over your bulleted list.

  


_Strategy:_

  1. _Make a preliminary map, starting with the bottom floor._
    1. _Walk through the hotel, note any odd features._
    2. _Mark off places which are off-limits to guests, or otherwise unfit_
    3. _Figure out if/where Alastor is staying in the hotel, and AVOID_
  2. _Run the sketch by Alastor, so that you don’t end up making a whole map before he inevitably rejects it_
  3. _Run the Sketch by Charlie and Vaggie_
  4. _Measure any halls/features that need to be to scale_
  5. _Make the final draft of the map_
  6. _Throw it at Alastor_
  7. _Go back to Charlie and report_
  8. _Victory meal_



  


_That’s better_ , if you can just follow this battle plan you should do fine, it’s very simple. You try to visualize the hotel in your head, and cross out the bottom floor, which makes you feel a little bit better.

 _And besides, I have a blueprint of the ship too_. You take a deep breath and refocus on the task at hand. _Yes,_ the hotel is weird and the room numbering system is less than ideal, but it’s _ok_ , you have this under control.

At the end of the hall, you mark off Charlie’s room, thinking maybe that needs some kind of special sign or symbol on the map, and then the door to the balcony.

Which is…

You aren’t sure what the door is, and you spend a long moment looking at it trying to decide just what the issues is. It matches all the other doors, heavy wood panels and a brass nob, but…

Your remember scaring yourself, when you had first seen the door, you jumped at your reflection. How had you done that when this door is wooden?

You blink several times, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, and tapping your fingers along your horn.

The sound of a door creaking open makes you flinch, and you turn to see a bright-eyed Charlie shutting her door quietly behind you. When she sees you, her face splits into a wide smile.

“Hey! You’re up early, we’re you waiting for me or something?”

“Oh, um, no, I’m just working on that hotel map.” You gesture with your armful of scattered documents, “By the way, um, wasn’t this door made of glass?”

Charlie wrinkles her nose and looks across you at the balcony door.

“Looks like wood to me.” She says with a shrug, “but I dunno what the doors are made of.”

“No I mean, the other day, when you and Vaggie were on the balcony and I came out to join you, wasn’t the door made of glass?”

Charlie looks at you blankly, and you try again.

“When Niffty came up, and swung the door open, didn’t you notice that it was a dark glass? You could see your reflec—”

“CÁLLATE ESTÚPIDA” Vaggie’s voice comes screeching through the shut door to 201 and Charlie giggles, looking vaguely apologetic. You sigh, feeling defeated, Charlie hadn’t been very helpful the other day either, it’s like anything remotely weird with the hotel is in her blind spot, or maybe she is just willfully ignorant to it. On the whole, you think Charlie must have a lot on her mind, at any given point, what with the whole “redemption of hell,” and maybe ignoring the continuous quirks of the hotel in favor of more pressing matters is just her way or prioritizing.

Whatever it is, you suppose it doesn’t _strictly_ matter. This hotel is weird, but then again, so what? And whatever Charlie’s weird inability to understand why you _can’t_ understand the hotel, honestly, honestly, to hell with it.

 _Ha_. 

Charlie leans in slightly and whispers to you.

“I’m going downstairs, let me know if you need me,”

“Oh, wait,” you say, and then wince as a long-suffering groan comes from behind Charlie’s door. You lower your voice before you continue, “I just wanted to let you know that room 215 is missing.” It’s really an afterthought, but you are hoping vaguely that Charlie will perhaps mention any _other_ rooms that might have been skipped in the numbering, and make your job a little easier.

That is not what Charlie does.

Instead, she pats you on the shoulder sympathetically and says, “I’m sure it’ll turn up soon.”

Then, with a little rosy-cheeked smile, she trots off down the hall, leaving you alone in the hallway.

_Sure it will what?_

Your brain experiences what can only be described as a long moment of introspection wherein it tries to fit Charlie’s statement into the schema of your knowledge, fails, and chucks the whole interaction into a growing pile of “vaguely ominous but unexplained things demons have said to me.”

And you, for your part, open the not-glass door and go out onto a balcony which looks blessedly just as spatially-illogical as when you last saw it, and spend the next 20 minutes sketching out the space on your binder-paper map. Ignoring Charlie’s weird statement is honestly, easier than you thought, and you feel pretty good about the progress you are making overall, hoping finish the next floor before the end of the day.

By the time you finally get back inside, the second floor has begun to smell suspiciously like what you can identify as “breakfast,” and you know Alastor must be back in the kitchen. You make a concerted effort not to go downstairs and sit drooling by the kitchen door, aided only slightly by your having eaten just a few hours before, and instead decide to work on the _other_ side of the hall instead.

You make it about as far as the stairs before that resolve falters, and you stand rooted on the landing, wrestling with your urge to torture yourself by standing _near_ food which you are not allowed to eat. And, honestly, who _knows_ how long Alastor will spend cooking. Every meal that you have attended so far has been nothing short of an _event_ , if you go downstairs you will just have to sit there miserably and wait for him to finish. 

After an unclear length of time, a disheveled-looking Vaggie comes shuffling down the hall and pushes past your existential crisis without any interest.

 _How does everyone else do it?_ You whine to yourself. It’s been _days_ since your first meal and you’re still nearly crippled by just the _smell_ of food. Shouldn’t you be used to it by now? _Mercy,_ nothing else has _ever_ taken you this long, not even your new body. 

Well, technically, you are still learning, but you had figured out the basics in, what? Ten minutes? And yet here you are, days into your newfound war with food, and every time you smell it it’s like the _first time._

And not only that, Alastor has all the meals under lock and key. How are you supposed to be strong, not show any prey weaknesses, when every single thing he cooks makes you want to roll over.

 _Not even figuratively, I literally want to take a nap in his scrambled eggs,_ you think forlornly, and put a hand to your head as if to hold that ridiculous thought inside your brain.

 _Okay,_ you rally yourself, _let’s just change perspectives. I need to treat this like training, approach it with control._ You think, maybe, you could try exposure, maybe go and sit downstairs and meditate where you can smell the food but not get to it, work on your discipline. You may be **fallen** , but you were once a divine being, immune to pleasures of the flesh, you just need to channel that, _how hard can it be_?

On some level, though, you think you might be having this idea because at some point during that inner monologue, you found yourself already downstairs, and staring at the kitchen door like you might will it into dissolving with your eyes.

_Hard, apparently._

…

“Um?”

Your brow furrows. You were getting into a groove, you had almost squashed that fantasy about filling your shower with that liquid sugar Charlie had poured on those flat cake things the other day and bathing in it. Almost. The noise sends you tumbling back down into that sweet sweet pool of carbohydrates.

_Just focus, block out the rest of the world._

“What the hell are you doing?”

It’s Vaggie.

You crack one eye open and look up at her from your position on the lobby floor, and try to estimate your chances of ignoring her without receiving bodily injury. By your estimate, your chances are zero, plus it would be rude, so instead you sigh and push yourself up.

“Nothing, waiting for breakfast. Do you need something?” You ask, dusting off your slacks in a motion that feels entirely performative, given the floors have been immaculately clean since Niffty materialized in the hotel.

“Kinda, I was just wondering what happened to the closet door.” Vaggie points behind her with one thumb, and you lean slightly to see where she means, although you suspect that you already know. Behind her is the closet, with the obviously broken door pinned closed by a single, haphazard board nailed across it.

 _Petty,_ you think.

“Oh, I asked Alastor to fix that,” You bite back the urge to add something snarky and unnecessary, “I guess he hasn’t had the chance yet, I accidentally broke it.”

Vaggie gives you a look that says she strongly suspects there is more to the story, but doesn’t seem inclined to press you for details. You hope that the subtext of “ _it’s Alastor’s fault”_ is strong enough for her to get, although it’s not a very big leap to blame Alastor for property destruction. Admittedly, the front door had been destroyed by that snake-demon, but the whole incident seems to have settled firmly in the “Alastor’s fault” category.

Then again, at least he had fixed that.

“So like, do you think he’s _going_ to fix it?” Vaggie asks, breaking your train of thought with one hand on her hip. You notice that the pajama pants she is wearing are too long, and she has rolled them up at the waist to keep them from dragging on the floor, which strikes you as weirdly endearing. You opt for honesty.

“I have no idea, but it doesn’t really matter, I think the spider-rat infestation is probably the bigger issue.” You shrug and Vaggie raises a single dark eyebrow.

“We have rats?” she parrots.

“Spider-rats.”

“Yeah, well, they’re all like that down here. Well, shit.” Vaggie runs a hand through her messy hair. _All of the rats are spiders? I wonder what the spiders look like._

“Well, ecologically speaking, introducing a natural predator is the simplest solution to a pest problem.” You offer, digging into your training on earth biology.

“Like what? You’re saying we should get a cat?” Vaggie gives you an incredulous look, and you catch a glimpse of Husk sitting up and glancing back at you from his barstool, looking offended, “No, trust me, if you’re surprised by the rats down here you _don’t_ want to see the cats.”

“Fuck you” Husk grunts from the vicinity of the bar, going back to what looks like a newspaper and a glass of something amber-colored.

Vaggie rolls her eyes, and waves one hand dismissively.

“What I’m saying is, it’s probably better to just buy some traps, I’ll talk to Charlie, could you get on the Radio Menace about fixing the door?”

You scratch the base of one horn awkwardly, but can’t think of anything even close to a good reason for why you _can’t_ talk to Alastor about it, other than that you don’t want to—which, to be fair neither does Vaggie—and nod.

Vaggie moves to walk away and you stop her, remembering your original thought about the closet space.

“Um, I was thinking we should clean out that space anyways. I was looking around in there and it seems to be mostly things that are too broken to use, and it’s quite big on the inside, We could convert it into something else, and besides, if it’s breeding spi—um, rats, then we probably should empty it out anyways.” You shrug, trying to spin your aversion to clutter into something useful.

“You’re probably right, a bunch of the rooms in this place are just used for storage, and most of it is just junk at this point. I’ll talk to Charlie about it, just, I dunno, keep an eye out for more rats?” Vaggie is already walking away from you, heading for Charlie who appears to be reading something on the far couch. You are thoroughly displeased with the suggestion that there might be _more_ rats in this hotel, but decide to deal with that if and only if you absolutely have to.

You nod your head decisively, but your enthusiasm is somewhat dampened by Alastor’s half-hearted repair on the door. You had expected him to fix the whole thing with his snap, which couldn’t be any more difficult than nailing a board over the thing. You think that Alastor uses some kind of spatial magic, based on his manipulations of the hotel, and his obnoxious tendency to disappear and reappear where you least expect him. Working with what little information you have, you expect that reverting the door to the way it was previously would likely be _less_ difficult for the Radio Demon than, say, conjuring an unrelated board and several nails and attaching all of that to the doorframe. 

Then again, none of this should be even remotely difficult for Alastor, given his many wanton displays of power up to this point. _Heaven’s mercy_ , the man seems to prefer teleporting to _walking_ , fixing a single door is child’s play.

No, the problem was that you had _told_ him to fix the door, obviously this was just a petty subversion of what you had said. But still, you could at least give him until the end of the day, just to see if he decides to change his mind.

And, had anyone asked, your reasoning had nothing to do with the fact that you wanted to interact with the resident demon Overlord as little as possible. None at all.

You catch a whiff from the kitchen, wafting over from where you are standing near the door, and stiffen slightly. _Lord_ that smells amazing, but you don’t think you will have any luck going back to meditating. Feeling itchy, you glance around the space and spot Husk, still slouched on the barstool with his paper, and decide company is as good of a distraction as anything.

“What.” Husk asks, before you even sit down. He doesn’t even really phrase it as a question, it sounds more defeated than anything, and you almost feel bad.

“Nothing, I was just wondering how your morning is going.” You go for chipper and end up at awkward, and you see Husk’s long sloping red eyebrow twitch behind his paper.

“Fine.” He says, turning the page with and air of exhaustion. go back and sit at the kitchen door and to take a hint from Husker who obviously _doesn’t_ want to talk and go back to beg at the kitchen door.

“Are you looking forward to breakfast? You ask, finding it very hard to talk about something that _isn’t_ food.

Husk lowers the paper and inch so he can look at you over its curled grey edge. The little hearts on his forehead are pulled down way past his gray widows peak, which is, in effect, both paternalistic and vaguely intimidating.

You have a strange flashback to yourself as a child, too young for the 9th choir, but wanting desperately to fight for the Heavenly cause. It was what you were _born_ for after all, what you were destined to do, and you spent every waking minute you had trying to shake the cloying attention of the Dominions that watched over you and sneak an audience to Archangel training. The Archangels had seemed so impressive to you then, their violence and precision had amazed you.

Once, crouched under the low edge of an armament rack, You had tried to watch the Archangel’s practice throwing spears, marveling at their skill A noise had startled you, and you had looked up to see a towering Archangel, much larger than you were at the time, its stitched mouth twisting into something like disapproval. The angel had walked you back to your matron, not even bothering to grab onto you, as you followed like a kicked puppy.

Archangel’s were your heroes, and their stitched mouths had seemed so imposing to you, their silence was power, their identical faces were unity you couldn’t wait for your own mouth to be sewn to join the choir, you even used to draw little lines on your face, like stitches, sometimes, just to imagine what it would be like.

To see one of those mouths, pulled down into this disapproving frown, it was…Angel’s don’t have parent’s, per say, seeing as new Angels are created from the divine fabric of heaven itself when a soul ascends (excluding, of course, the original Angels created by the _Maker_ from pure divine energy) as immaculate and divested of their memories of their past life, but you can imagine if you had had parents, and you had failed one, it would feel a lot like that Archangel frowning down at you.

“Earth to kid, hello, are you having a fuckin’ stroke or something?” Husk’s voice yanks you out of your memory, and you stammer apologetically, “Jesus fuck kid you are weird as hell, you know that. Tryin’a start a fuckin’ conversation and then just checking the fuck out, it’s a fuckin’ miracle you remember to get dressed in the morning” Husk grumbles as he separates out a sheaf from his paper with one long pale claw, and then hands it to you.

You grab it, confused, and look at him.

“It’s a paper, kid, ya read it, shit quit lookin’ at me like that, shut up and read.” Husk grouses, then flips his paper back up to cover his face, leaving you essentially alone with your slip of newspaper.

Like everything Husk has done so far, the gesture falls somewhere between openly hostile and oddly compassionate, and you can’t help the smile that breaks out on your face. Reading is a good distraction too, you suppose.

The paper, however, has other plans.

Husk has separated out for you the front page, which, because of the way the paper is printed, is also the back page. You spend a few minutes looking through the classified ads on the back page, vaguely amused at all the strange snippets advertising everything from used cars to sexual favors to full-body portrait paintings. The inside of the fold has a random article from the end of the sports section, and then an involved piece discussing something you can’t quite figure, until your realize that you are reading the second half of the article, prompting you to flip the paper over to reveal the front page.

Which is plastered with another image of that moth-demon you saw on TV several days ago clutching what you realize with a start is a life-sized dummy of an Angel wearing a traditional extermination mask and stuck through with an entire assortment of weaponry.

The caption reads, _Valentino pictured with his angelic voodoo doll, says ‘it’s my little good luck charm, I know I’ll have the real thing soon enough.”_

You swallow thickly, and look at the headline.

**The Overlord kingpin Valentino triples bounty: _Valentino now heading the ongoing search for fallen angel_**

“Triples?” You say aloud, staring at the paper in disbelief, and prompting Husk to look over at you in vague interest.

“Oh, yeah, that Valentino guy is a real piece of work, and coming from a guy that works for the fuckin biggest asshole around, you know that means somethin’” Husk grunts, setting his paper down on the counter and leaning on one hand.

“Valentino?” You ask, still reeling at the sheer number of zeroes now figured in the bounty on _your_ head.

“Yeah, complete dick. Jokes on him though ‘cause he’s just wasting his time. If they ain’t found that angel yet, fucker is dead in some alley. It’s been, what, like a week?” Husker gestures vaguely with his free hand.

“Ten days, today.” You respond immediately, and then feel extremely self-conscious. Thankfully, Husker doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, like ten days, no one survives alone on the street lookin’ like _that,”_ he gestures at the Angel “doll” in the picture with obvious disgust, “for ten days, not a chance in actual fucking hell.”

“No way Husk,” Niffty pops up on the other side of Husk so fast that it’s like she materializes from thin air, and you resist the urge to yelp, “I once knew this guy, ok well, I didn’t really know him, but my best friend Mimzy knew him, well, she didn’t really know him either, but he was a regular at her club, or like, he came in once or twice, or maybe it was just the first time, I’m not—” Niffty’s wide black pupil constricts dizzyingly as she rushes through her story, and you can’t help but feel relieved when Husk interrupts her and pulls her focus back to the issue at hand.

“Niffty, fuck, get to the point.”

“Oh yeah! Sorry! Anyways, he said that one time he knew someone who’s cousin was in the last feeding frenzy, you know, from way back when, and _she_ told his friend who told him that that angel was living in the city for like a whole year before it got found out, like, hiding in the sewers and eating rats or something it was totally gross and it gives me the willies just thinking about all the dirt down there, I really can’t imagine why—”

“Nah, nah bullshit, I heard what it was was some rich fuck kept the fucker in a cage and was like bleeding it little by little, to keep it alive, yeah? And the frenzy was only after word got out what that guy done and they stormed the fuckin place.” Husk puffs out his chest slightly, “ain’t no fuckin angel surviving in no fucking sewers.”

“No, no Husk it’s true I swear!” Niffty bounces on the balls of her feet, trying to get closer to Husker’s face even though her chin is barely above the level of the barstool, “Mimzy said that guy said that the guy he knew said that his cousin said that the angel was skinning demons and wearing their faces, like that guy with the talk show, and using them as disguises so it could get around, which is also super gross because I bet the inside of someone’s face is pretty slimy and like blood is _such_ a pain to get out of fabric so I don’t even want to think about the clothing situation—”

“Like Ed Gein? Yeah fuckin right, skinning demons. Look, everyone knows that fallen angels smell right? How the fuck would some creepy fuckin sewer dwelling creep hide that, huh?” Husk cuts Niffty off again, waving the bottle that has appeared in his hand emphatically. 

“ _Because_ Husk, sewers stink, duh! Everyone knows that, that’s how it hid, and it was eating rats just like I said and—”

“When was this?” You cut Niffty off this time, and it seems as though she has only just noticed your presence, because when she sees you her eye dilates to almost pure black and her face flames red and she makes an effort to hide behind Husker’s drooping wing that you might find endearing, if you weren’t so nauseous.

This is gossip to them, regular gossip, they can just discuss the torture and murder of some **fallen** like cheap gossip, it means _nothing_ to them.

Husk blinks at you like he has forgotten you were sitting there, and then shrugs in disinterest.

“Dunno, a few centuries? It was before me, and I been here, fuck, two hundred years almost? Long fuckin time ago, long enough for this dipshit to get some stupid ass story in her head.” Husk gestures towards Niffty, still hiding behind his wing and blushing furiously, which serves to snap her out of her weird reaction to you and back into the fray. The two bicker while you try and run the mental math, because _“long fucking time ago”_ doesn’t sound like very long at all.

If hell runs at about half the speed of heaven, and Husk has been here, at most, two hundred years, that means he died one hundred years ago, surface time. Husk is younger than you, you realize, which isn’t helpful seeing as you yourself can’t remember any other angel falling during your lifetime. You had thought it had been more than a thousand years, real time, since an angel had fallen, which would be nearly two millennia in hell, but Husk and Niffty are speaking in terms much more recent than that. Demon’s don’t have a lifespan, _per say_ , but hell is not made to be hospitable, and those that fall generally don’t last overly long, excluding the privileged few. Could another angel really have **fallen** within the last 500 years? The last 300? Within your lifetime even?

You thought the last **fall** was millennia ago, that’s what everyone said, in heaven.

You think back to your trial, to the rows and rows of yellow eyes looking at you from the stands. There had been many, enough to restrain you, enough to cast you off the edge, but not _that_ many. A few dozen, maybe? Less than 50? You had been operating under the assumption that your trial was broadcast, well known, that you had been made an example of, but you don’t actually have any _proof_ of that. All you know for sure is what you saw.

And what you saw wasn’t much. Few enough for Michael to keep quiet.

Could it be possible that another angel, that someone else, had been cast out? That there were others, more recent than thousands of years ago?

 _Michael could do it,_ you think, feeling ice cold down your spine and through your pin feathers. _They could throw someone away and keep it quiet, They have the power, if they wanted to, they could._

And then, more horribly, _they could have done that to me. I could be **fallen** and no one would know, they could have made me disappear_.

The thought makes you physically sick, and you find that you need air, suddenly, or you might actually vomit, which is not something you really knew you were capable of.

With white hands, you grab the paper and get up, pushing your barstool back with a loud grating noise that makes Husk and Niffty pause in their argument.

“I’m sorry, I just…excuse me” You mumble, and head stiffly for the door, ignoring the eyes that follow you, and finally slipping out into the murky morning air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the delay on this one, my sister came to town this week and I had less time than I thought to write.  
> Anyways, I’m feeling like I’m back in the swing of things. I’m actually one chapter ahead right now, which is awesome, so I’m hoping that I can finally actually get my schedule back on track!  
> About this chapter: I am trying to keep the more “boring” mapping stuff to a minimum, but be sure to let me know if you find it boring or the pacing too slow. This chapter especially takes place across only a few hours of time, making it very narrow in terms of pacing, and I always appreciate any and all feedback about how these things are reading to you guys! As always, comments, suggestions, criticism, whatever, is welcome!  
> I also had to work on my timeline for this one, which made me realize holy shit it’s only been TEN DAYS since our angel crash landed. Day one is the crash, plus three days asleep, plus her first day in the hotel, plus extermination day, plus the first episode, plus first day of work, plus shopping plus today! I feel like my pacing is actually absurd, but here we are lol, it feels like a lot longer than that.  
> I am actually planning a small time skip coming up, which should add to that total, but I expect that the bulk of my story will be taking place over very little time, all things considered, which is unexpected. Honestly I had plans, going into this, with days and months and everything all spaced out, and the story like, while I was in the act of writing it, just said “haha, no” and did its own thing, I feel like I’m almost a tool of the story rather than the other way around lol.  
> But really, I mean, how much time does one need to fall in love? Disney has taught me, at the least, literally a second, so, by that metric I’m in the black. I’m gonna shoot for a groundhog day effect, where like, if you look at all the literal days in the movie the loop is only like a few weeks, but the implication is that it’s actually like a decade, so my whole story will be like three weeks of actual interactions and ten years of implications.  
> Ok maybe not ten years, but you get the point.  
> Anyways, Happy New Year everyone! See you all in the next one!


	40. Even if You Tried

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me: *I'll just write a fun little fic for Hazbin hotel*  
> Me, 120k words later: "well I do always say that I wish my favorite fics were longer "  
> ._.
> 
> In this chapter, you take a minute to feel your feelings.
> 
> possible TW for panic attacks

Chapter 34: Even if You Tried

Possible TW for panic attacks

* * *

It’s surprisingly cold outside, even though the skies, such as they are, are clear. You are finding the weather in hell to be surprisingly hard to predict, in the small amount of time you have actually spent _outside_ the Hotel.

_I’m thinking about the weather, I’ve just realized that my excommunication may have been an entirely pointless affair that affected no one and was covered up by the powers that be and I’m thinking about the weather._

You almost laugh, and frankly, you are feeling rather hysterical. You raise your hand to your forehead, only to be surprised at the presence of the newspaper, still crumpled under your white-knuckled grip. Slowly, you unclench your hand and let the paper fall onto the stairs, watching it waver slowly, serenely, down onto the red concrete.

First the paper. No, actually, first Alastor and the stupid broom closet filled with _garbage_ and the insane rats and _then_ the paper. And then Husk and Niffty talking casually about _murder_ , which, this is hell, granted, but was still disturbing. And, _heaven’s mercy_ , they used “it.” They talked about the angel as though they weren’t sentient, and you, you were doing that just a few days ago to demons. Not out loud, you don’t think, but that’s how you were thinking about them. And it feels terrible, awful, to be on the other end, you feel like a monster.

And, on top of that, some angel, some poor soul, was cast out, and died here, amongst demons who thought of them as an “it,” and you didn’t even _know their name_. _They died alone and at the hands of a mob of demons and I don’t even know who they were._

And then you’re crying, really, really crying the way you had in the crater, crying because so much has been lost, and for what? You, you were lost, forsaken, **fallen** , and while the demons run around putting your likeness in the newspaper, while you are the biggest thing that has happened in hell for _who knows how long_ , you might not even be a footnote in your home. Michael may have erased you, deleted you, stolen your name and your face and your body and everything but your tiny, fractured soul and thrown you in the one place no angel would think to look.

 _Could they even recognize me?_ _If an archangel were here, right now, would they know me as **fallen**? Would they even realize what I am, what I was?_

And, that Michael may have been doing this all along…How many positions had “opened up” in the higher choirs? Had your own promotion been facilitated by someone else’s fall?

You need…you need to throw something, you decide. Something big, something big and heavy. You can’t really see straight through your tears, and you’re shuddering every few seconds, but you can vaguely make out the looming shapes of the boulders and rubble still strewn about the drive. Things that no one cleaned up, and thank the _Lord_ for that because you really need something to throw right now.

You nearly trip as you run down the steps, frantic with your manic desire to break something, but you right yourself before you reach the nearest shape. You can’t tell what it is, although it feels a bit like drywall under your hand, is light like plaster when you heave it over your head, and sounds a bit like wood when it smashes into the gravel a few feet away from you.

The next think you grab is definitely stone, and significantly harder to lift off the ground owing both to the weight and lack of corners, but you don’t struggle too much to heave it up over your head, balancing for one perfect, insane instant like Atlas shouldering the world, before you fling it away from you and down the drive where it lands with the satisfying _crack_ of rock on rock. 

Panting, but your vision clearing slightly as your tears give way to psychotic rage, the next think you find appears to be a destroyed chunk of the front door, which crunches nicely under your taloned foot when you bring one down on it with and muffled shriek. Your talons feel sharp and lethal, and cut through the mahogany like butter, ripping away chunks of it easily and flinging them off behind you into a splintered pile of fury. It feels good, it feels phenomenal, it feels like carving your name into the stupid meaningless fabric of hell, leaving it there in carnage for someone else to read.

You are big. Powerful. You feel like you could destroy the whole of hell if you wanted to, and you really, really want to. You feel like you could claw your way back to heaven on a mountain of slaughtered demons and exterminators, work your way inch by bloody inch all the way back to those pristine white clouds, all the way face to face with that _rotten bastard_ who threw you out like common trash, like you could grab his beautiful perfect white face in your hands and—

“Holy _shit_ ” Vaggie’s voice comes from behind you like a slap to the face, and you freeze in your tracks, rage melting away like motor oil, leaving shiny, rainbow stains on the gravel.

Or maybe you’re just crying again, but either way you vision goes from pure red back to real color, and your mouth tastes bitter and metallic. You realize you have bitten through the inside of your lip, and run your tongue along your teeth, which feel much _much_ sharper than normal. You close your eyes and take a deep, steadying, shuddering breath, and you almost feel like you shrink, like the enormity of your righteous fury abandons you and all that is left is your tiny, demonic body, beaten and scarred and fragile, standing on the front drive in a pile of your own directionless frustration.

You unstick your foot from where the talons are still dug into the wood and shake off the splinters, before you finally turn around.

The drive looks awful. Before, the chunks of rubble had seemed like some bizarre modern art piece slowly reclaimed by nature, as the reddish grass struggled up through the gravel. Now it looks like nothing less than a war zone. The first thing you threw appears to have been a hunk of the wall, and has left a trail of shredded insulation and white plater powder in its wake like a blood splatter. The boulder you threw actually broke _in half_ , forming a jagged edge that slices angrily across the red sky, impossibly large, you can hardly believe you actually lifted the thing. And the door, well, not much of it is left except for the fan of splinters surrounding you, choking up fresh trenches in the ground where your feet tore up the fledgling lawn to expose the rusty earth underneath.

Vaggie and Charlie are standing on the front porch. Charlie has found your discarded newspaper, smoothed it out, and is looking at it with drawn brows. Vaggie on the other hand, is staring at you with what you can only really compare to fear. On Vaggie, it looks a lot like hostility, but something about her eyes tells you that whatever Vaggie is looking at is seriously frightening. _And she’s looking at me_.

You put your hands up in something like a peaceful gesture, trying to calm Vaggie down trying to make yourself seem non-threatening, but the effort just becomes too much, and you can’t stop your hands from falling back to your side.

It’s like something in you snaps, crumbles like loose stone and rolls away down a hill, and you just sit down where you are. You don’t have the energy to walk towards them, to explain yourself to Vaggie, to try and seem diplomatic, to try and seem safe. You don’t _feel_ safe. And honestly, you just don’t have it in you to try and make Vaggie feel safe either. Maybe that’s selfish, maybe you owe it to the people who house and feed and employ you that luxury, you don’t know, but you just can’t do it right now.

Charlie—you think it’s Charlie, you have your head in your hands—makes a formless noise of sympathy, and then you can hear her steps crunching across the gravel towards you over Vaggie’s halfhearted warning to “be careful.” Charlie stops in front of you, and you tense yourself to try and give some kind of explanation, which frankly, you really don’t have, when Charlie kneels in front of you and pulls you into a bone-crushing hug.

You let out something like a wheeze, or maybe a sob, and then the tension leaks out of you and you’re sitting there, on the gravel, sniffing in the arms of a much larger demon, in a pile of splinters and debris, and it’s all crashing down around you, and Charlie is the only thing between you and completely losing your grip on your sanity.

And then, Vaggie is there too, standing nearby, not really _doing_ anything but not trying to kill you, which feels like a real act of mercy, and Charlie is patting your stupid broken horn and making these little comforting noises and you don’t know _what_ you feel anymore.

There is just so _much_. So much pain, so much violence, so much suffering, and for what? You haven’t been in hell _two full weeks_ and yet its managed to take so much from you. Every time you think you are settling in, every time you hide from the mob, disguise yourself, avoid Alastor’s dangerous interest, something else happens. There is only so much you can carry on your horns, and you are so small now, you think _so much_ has finally become _too much_.

 _I’m losing it,_ you think desperately, trying to breathe in something resembling a regular rhythm. 

Eventually, Charlie lets you go, holding you out in front of her at arms-length and looking you square on with the kind of confidence that only born aristocracy and certifiable lunatics ever seem to possess. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Charlie asks, looking so deadly serious that, if you didn’t feel so very awful to the moment, you might find it comedic on her round pink face.

As it stands, you just sort of shrug noncommittally, feeling very much like you are lost at sea. _Do I want to talk about it?_

“I just—” you start, and then wipe your face with one arm, trying to regain some level of dignity, “I thought no one had **fallen** in over a thousand years.”

Charlie blinks at you, and looks over to Vaggie, both of them looking confused. Charlie makes like she might ask a question but you push through her and continue, feeling like you need to at least offer some sort of context for your meltdown.

“If Michael could hide other **fallen** , they could hide _me_. I think—” and you feel your rage in the back of your throat, threatening to spill over, and you make a helpless gesture with your hands, “I think Michael threw me down here and covered it up. My story, my trial, I don’t think anyone up there,” You wave one hand at that pristine white dot in the sky, mocking you even now, and laugh once “I don’t think anyone even _knows_. They just, they threw me out, they erased me, I’m going to die down here and no one in heaven or on earth will ever know the difference.”

And then you’re crying _again_ , although at least quietly this time, and Charlie looks lost, just patting your arm sympathetically.

“You’re not going to die down here,” Charlie tries, smoothing your hair back, “You’re safe, Valentino or whoever can’t touch you.”

“No Charlie, that’s not it, I _will_ die here, eventually. You can keep me safe for now, but for how long? Eventually it will all fall apart, and I will die just like the last **fallen** and every **fallen** before that, torn apart by the horde, and no one will even know the difference!” You are working yourself up again, and you start to feel like you can’t get enough air, like the oxygen in hell itself is tainted, burning your lungs with each breath.

And Charlie is looking at you like she doesn’t know what to say, because what can she say? Some poor angel, who knows how many poor angels have died down here, and there’s—

“Hey, get a hold of yourself.” Vaggie’s voice is harsh, and Charlie looks at her aghast, but Vaggie waves her off. “Look, newsflash, you’re _already dead_ , ok, you already did that and you’re still here, so it’s not like dying is that big of a deal.”

You blink at Vaggie through your hysterics, feeling vaguely disoriented by her argument.  
“Vaggie that’s not what I—”

“ _Callate_ and let me finish. Look, so Michael or whoever covered up your banishment, so fucking what? You’re still here, you haven’t been eaten yet. So the other angels before you died, but not all of them. Charlie is living undead proof that a fallen angel can survive in hell,” Vaggie gestures to Charlie with both hands like this is the most obvious thing in the world, “She’s the fucking daughter of Lucifer. And what’s the difference between him and everyone else? Charlie, what’s that thing your dad always tells you?” Vaggie elbows Charlie, who blinks like a deer in the headlights.

“Uh, I’m too soft to ever lead the demonic hordes of Hell?” She tries.

“No, no, the other thing.”

“Don’t take shit from other demons?” Charlie tries again, and Vaggie points to her and then to you, as though the conclusion here is obvious. You don’t really follow, mostly too caught up in sitting in the dirt and feeling miserable. Vaggie rolls her eyes.

“Lucifer doesn’t take shit from other demons. _Lucifer_ doesn’t give a _fuck_. So other angels died, yeah, well, people die every day, you can’t change that. What you can do, is woman the fuck up and take your life by the balls for one.”

You and Charlie both look up at Vaggie, who is somewhat out of breath, like she is a particularly strange wild animal. Vaggie adjusts her hair self-consciously, and waves one hand around the front drive.

“And while you’re at it you could stop wrecking the property? Jesus, breaking shit and feeling sorry for yourself never did _nada para nadie._ It’s like I’m the only one with any perspective around here,” Vaggie throws her hands up and storms off, stopping a few meters from you and Charlie either to fume or to keep an eye on the two of you.

Charlie watches Vaggie go, and then turns to you with all the defensive maternal instinct of a hen protecting her brood.

“Look, Vaggie can be a bit harsh but I think what—”

You cut her off when you burst into sudden, hysterical laughter. 

Vaggie is…sharp, literally and figuratively, she has a very honed persona of defensive hostility, a whole carefully crafted aura that says “don’t mess with me” on threat of violence. And on top of that, not only does she not trust you, but she was also visibly scared of you not five minutes ago. 

And in spite of all that, when you are sitting in the dirt crying about a fate you can’t change and Charlie doesn’t know what to do, Vaggie walks up and delivers an impromptu motivational speech. It’s like, in spite of all her hostility, she can’t stand by and let you be miserable, and that’s…

That’s not demonic.

It’s not angelic either, angels aren’t much for pretty words and fluffy emotions, they are practical. 

No, Vaggie is something else, something uniquely and beautifully human, grudgingly empathetic, wrestling with every impulse. You think about all of the humans you observed on earth, many of them in bad situations, many of them stuck, out of options. As an angel it had seemed so strange to you, _don’t they know that they can give up, die in piety and contemplation instead of living in sin_. Humans faced with a zero sum game, even when they know the risks, they play anyways. Humans live, even when things are hard, even when giving up would save everyone the pain.

And Vaggie is telling you to live. And for a moment, you see another girl, younger than Vaggie, darker, more harrowed, facing bad decision after bad decision, but persisting anyway. _Vaggie reminds me of her, a little,_ you think, and it tastes bittersweet in your laughter.

“I can’t believe she told me to shut up,” You wheeze, cough, and then spit a glob of bloody saliva over your shoulder and onto the gravel, running your tongue over the healing bite-wound on the inside of your mouth. Then Charlie is smiling too, sure now that you aren’t having some kind of weird comedic fit.

Chuckling, you push yourself to your feet, using Charlie for support, and make your way over to Vaggie, who still seems righteously angry at your apparent ineptitude.

“You’re right Vaggie. Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just stop breaking shit okay?” She looks at you with what you now recognize as affected anger, and you smile.

You probably still look awful, considering all of the crying you just did, and, if you are being honest with yourself, you are _not_ okay, not by a long shot. You don’t know how many other angels have **fallen** , how many lives Michael destroyed and then covered up. You don’t know if you can maintain your cover, if this Valentino guy or some other demon after the bounty might eventually find out who and what you are, and you don’t know if or when that might be.

But Vaggie _is_ right. You are alive, or rather undead, but you do have to breathe so by that metric, Michael hasn’t killed you yet. Nothing will be solved by throwing a temper tantrum in the front yard. If you want a future down here, you are going to have to fight for it.

And that, at least, you know how to do.

…

Demons are not friendly.

With the exception of Charlie, of course, who is a rather unique ball of manic energy, and perhaps Alastor, who disguises violent impulses behind civility, demons don’t like to make conversation. 

Demons, mind their own business.

This has been a constant source of annoyance to you thus far. Your continuous efforts to make nice with the hotel staff have experienced various degrees of failure, from Vaggie, who seems to begrudgingly feel some level of moral responsibility for your safety, to Angel, who very much does not. And then Husk, from whom you have to pull every sentence like an impacted tooth, to Niffty, who seems more than willing to talk at length with anyone _but_ you.

This is to say nothing of strangers. You hadn’t even considered the possibility of _talking_ to a strange demon, much less a hostile one, until Charlie had demonstrated.

This is all to say, demons are a private and overall stoic bunch.

And, walking back into the lobby, with dirty scuffs on your clothes, disheveled hair, and a face that _must_ be red with crying, you find that you have never been more grateful for that fact. 

Charlie and Vaggie, after walking you in, seem more than willing to give you space and head towards the couch, although Charlie makes sure to tell you that you can join them, if you like. Niffty, in her usual fashion, stubbornly refuses to look at you and instead bolts across the room to clean the baseboards. Angel is nowhere in sight. Husk takes one look at your face, as you swing in to sit at his bar, and pours you a rather large mixture of something that smells downright caustic and pushes it towards you.

“I’m okay.” You say, pushing the drink back towards him with one hand. Husk snorts out a laugh, looks at you for a half second, then shrugs and drinks the mixture in one impressive gulp and goes back to methodically polishing glasses.

And, sure, “ _okay”_ may have been an exaggeration, but while you may have fallen into sin, you decide firmly to keep that _particular_ sin as far away from you as possible.

You aren’t even sure if you _can_ drink alcohol. It certainly smells poisonous.

You shift in your chair, feeling somewhat uncomfortable, and notice that your corset is slightly loose, as though the lacing had come partially undone. You consider taking a moment to try and fix it, but decide you really don’t have the energy, and opt instead to just lean your head on one hand and close your eyes. 

But, at least, demons mind their own business. So, you and Husk sit in a neutral silence for a few minutes, with Husk continuing to take occasional sips from a large green bottle, and everything is pretty close to “okay”

Then Alastor comes out of the kitchen. 

Because while demons may mind their own business, Alastor does not.

So when Husk looks up and makes a sour face at something over your shoulder, admittedly, you should have seen the next part coming.

“Why, Darling, what in the world happened?” Alastor’s voice booms from just behind your head, making you flinch bodily away from him, “you look frightful, and you’re absolutely filthy!” Alastor’s cold hand ghosts across your shoulder, presumably dusting away some scuff, and you feel your lip twitch in something not unlike a snarl, heat rising in your face. You really don’t have the patience for this today, you _really_ don’t.

Alastor, of course, cannot see your expression as you are resolutely facing away from him. Husker, though, looks between you and the red menace with something like apprehension, and you see the twitching end of his tail fluff up behind him.

“And look, you’ve split the seam on your blouse, you silly girl,” You feel the prick of Alastor’s nails along your skin and realize that you really must have torn your shirt somehow. Vaguely you hope that your bright red corset isn’t visible, but more pressingly, you resist the urge to slap the hand away from your exposed skin.

“What on earth have you been doing? I had hoped that after getting yourself stuck in that broom closet you would be a little more careful,” You can hear the mocking grin in his voice, and you feel your hand tense where it is gripping the bar, hard enough that you can hear the wood creak in protest. _I’m going to hit him, I really am,_ you think, trying desperately to find your last thread of composure, _I’m going to hit him and then he’s going to kill me and that will be the end of it._

Husk must be thinking the same thing, however, because he jumps in before you have a chance to get yourself killed.

“Hey, asshole,” Husk grunts, ears flat to his head in either annoyance or nervousness, you can’t quite tell, “quit bugging her, I’m hungry, what’s for breakfast?”

Which, apparently, is the magic word for Alastor, who practically combusts in excitement as he appears behind Husk, draping one rail-thin arm over the shorter man’s shoulders.

“Why Husker I am simply thrilled that you asked! I never knew you were so interested in cooking! Today I have prepared a simply delightful array of treats for you all…” Alastor steers Husker away from the bar and towards the table, which is dutifully setting itself. Husker rolls his eyes and shoots you a look that tells you he expects you to repay him for this great inconvenience.

You sigh and give him a silent “thank you,” pushing your disheveled hair out of your face in exasperation. You would really like to go up to your room and change, maybe fix your unravelling corset, but the smell of food is tantalizing, and you find yourself unable to resist the pull of the table.

 _At least Alastor seems to be just as distracted by food as I am,_ you think, as you slip into your spot next to Charlie, tuning out Alastor’s continued explanation of the dishes in favor of filling your plate.

The food improves your mood, and half of the dishes seem to be new, including some delicious fried pastry Alastor calls a _beignet_ and talks at length about while insistently serving to you. And really, by the end of breakfast you feel better, or at least, less like you might burst into flames (again).

And if Alastor stares at you a degree more than usual, or pushes even more food your way than he normally does, well, you don’t pay it much attention. You are more than happy to ignore the man and enjoy the cooking.

And hope that for once, that particular demon can mind his own business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Phew, this chapter was emotionally exhausting, but also very cathartic. I think the pacing for the story will pick up slightly from here, now that I've gotten the big reveal about angels out of the way, and probably focus in more on MC and the staff. I had some more backstory planned, but I think I'm going to shift that into Part Three and spend the rest of part two on some hardcore romancing! This Part is turning out to be quite long, I'm estimating around ten more chapters before we move into Part Three, so those of you who enjoy brutally long slow burn fics with lots of angst and warm fuzzies and enemies to friends vibes, this fic is shaping up to be an absolute beast!  
> If I can finish up the chapter there might be a Wednesday post this week (I know I missed Friday last week I'm sorry, again this chapter was v emotional) which should be quite a bit closer to light-hearted, so look forward to that!! Our angel has some serious sass to accomplish now that she isn't playing Alastor's game, and has committed to fighting for her place in hell, and I'm hyped to write it!! 
> 
> As always thank you for the lovely comments, you all are so sweet <3 kudos, bookmarks, etc. are also appreciated, bookmarks I especially recommend if you want to read this fic but cant deal with my erratic upload schedule lol.  
> See you all next time!


	41. With Both Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In This Chapter, you have two surprises, one nasty and one cute.

Chapter 35: With Both Hands

* * *

There is a rat in your bed.

A dead rat, granted, a very _very_ dead rat, but a rat nonetheless.

In your bed.

You take this moment to simply lay down on the floor and groan in long, drawn-out annoyance.

_What a day._

After breakfast, you had gone upstairs to change and found that you had, indeed, split the seam on the back of your shirt, exposing a pale sliver of flesh and feathers, and the beige strap of your camisole, but thankfully no red and black stripes.

You corset too, once you uncovered it, had been loosened, the knot in the front lacing come undone and the rest of the ties loosened as though you had taken a very large breath and pushed the whole thing open from the inside.

And, ok, sure, you split your shirt open cracking a huge boulder in half, that you could basically understand, but your corset? That made significantly less sense, and thinking about it gave you a vaguely uneasy feeling, like something wasn’t quite right, so instead you opted to change your shirt and get back to work.

At least work itself was uneventful for the rest of the day. The far side of the second floor seemed relatively normal, with no missing rooms or random balconies to speak of, and you got through about a quarter of the third floor before deciding to finish early, given the time you woke up.

So, in a technical sense, you are making progress, but in a more literal sense, you feel like perhaps nothing at all has been accomplished. Vaggie had given you a good speech, a great speech even, acutely human and strangely beautiful, if a bit rough around the edges. After breakfast, you felt good, ready to take on the rest of the day, and Alastor even left you alone until lunch, when he sent Niffty to bring you a sandwich.

Well, at least, you assume he sent her, given her general unwillingness to get within 10 feet of you, and the fact that she left the sandwich on the floor before running for cover with a muffled squeal meant that she certainly didn’t send herself. That, and anyone else would have just brought you the sandwich instead of sending Niffty as an errand girl.

All of this, at the time, had seemed encouraging, perhaps Alastor really was growing bored of you. His attention span did seem to be quite short, after all, and sending Niffty instead of taking the opportunity to annoy you in person seemed like a step in the right direction. 

Which brings you back to the current issue. A rat. In your bed.

You stare at the ceiling, biting off the corner of the granola bar you snatched from the pantry. Alastor opted to leave out some snacks instead of a full course dinner tonight, which frankly you had believed a stroke of luck, but apparently he had used that time to catch, kill, and stash a rat _in your bed_ instead of, oh, say, _anything else_.

“Why me?” you ask the ceiling, “ _Hell_ I can understand, I know how I got here, but Alastor?” You gesture vaguely at the drywall with your granola bar, “that’s just not fair.”

You think, not for the first time since your **fall** , that there really ought to be separate areas in hell for more serious sinners. Throwing everyone in one lot together is not just unfair, its resulting in _rats in your bed_ , which is absurd, really.

And the rat wasn’t just _on_ your bed, it was _in_ your bed, as in, under the covers, tiny head twisted around unnaturally and myriad eyes staring blankly into the room. Had you not pulled back the covers of your bed all the way, you might not have seen the thing at all, and instead climbed into bed, felt eight fuzzy legs, and panicked.

Presumably this was the intended outcome.

Not only that, but the implication that Alastor had, unlike his parlor trick with the clothes yesterday where he _snapped_ them into existence on your bed, actually entered your room and intentionally hidden a _dead rat_ under your covers in the hope of frightening you or who knows what. That makes you exceptionally uncomfortable. 

It’s not that there is anything particularly _angelic_ in your room. Half of your furniture is missing, as you haven’t bothered to swipe replacements from a spare room (although there are undoubtedly many), and the rest of the space is practically unlived in. You even make your bed in the mornings.

But, your angelic robe is _in_ your bed, folded and tucked under one of the pillows like a good luck talisman. You aren’t even sure that Alastor would _know_ what it was if he saw it, just a tattered scrap of blood-stained fabric as it is, but he _might_.

And on top of that, you _live_ in this space, the idea of Alastor waltzing in whenever he pleases, sets you on edge. _This time he left a dead animal behind, but what if this isn’t the first time?_ And obviously you knew that he _could_ enter your room, which was creepy enough as is, but now you have evidence?

 _How is a dead rat less upsetting to me than the idea of Alastor being in my room?_ You wonder blankly at the ceiling, chewing on your granola bar with impotent rage.

You momentarily indulge a fantasy of taking the rat, marching to Alastor’s room (wherever it is) and throwing it in his face, berating him for his childish behavior, for insisting on a stupid prank even though it was obvious that you had been upset earlier, and then maybe punching him for good measure.

 _Why is it that Alastor can march into my room and plant a piece of roadkill, and I can’t do anything about it?_ You crumple up the cellophane wrapper in your hand and cover your eyes with one arm.

_Proverbs 3:31_

_Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways._

You brain almost recites this _for_ you, and you say the words out loud before you can really think about it. You blink several times at the sparkling darkness behind your eyes, considering the weird irony in that particular sentiment, all things considered, before resolving to get off the floor and get rid of the rat before it drives you insane.

You don’t bother finding something to pick the rat up _with_ , considering it probably hasn’t been dead for very long, and instead opt to grab it in one taloned foot while you strip your bed down. There isn’t much blood, but it has stained the sheets, so you pull them off the mattress and tuck them under one arm and leave the relatively clean blankets behind. It’s probably too late to wash the sheets completely, but you can at least put them in the wash and finish tomorrow, and maybe just sleep on the floor in the meantime.

Seriously questioning your resolve to not rise to Alastor’s childish attempts to bait you, you switch the limp rat to one hand, turn off the light, and move to leave your room, but pause at the door, feeling the feathers at your neck prickle.

You often feel a sense of being _watched_ in the hotel, this is nothing new, but for a brief moment that feeling becomes even more tangible, and you half imagine that you can sense something dark and cold moving towards you, step by silent step.

You spin around suddenly, scanning the room and blinking your second eyelid rapidly, trying to catch any sign of movement. The shadows in the space swim for a moment, giving you a weird sense of distortion, before abruptly righting themselves into an empty, plain hotel room. You think for a moment that you can smell something sweet and pungent, almost like ozone, but then it’s gone, and you aren’t sure it was ever there in the first place.

 _Give me a break_ , you think, and push out the door into the dark hallway.

Lacking any good options for disposing of the rat, seeing as throwing it in the trashcan seems like a bad idea, you opt instead to put it outside. You prop the door open with a stray brick from the yard and walk around the side of the building until you find a place near some stray bushes, and dig a shallow grave with one foot. 

You cover the thing up, hoping it doesn’t attract some kind of scavenger, and pause before going back into the hotel. You aren’t really sure about the nature of non-human life in Hell. Natural-born demons have souls, in the same way that original angels do, but the animals in hell aren’t something you have ever bothered to concern yourself with, except in the capacity of wondering if they could kill you. You suppose that they are likely to be close to the animals on earth, without proper souls and instead composed spiritually of the same energy as the rest of their plane, disappearing into the general mesh after their death.

The thought sets you wondering vaguely about your own soul. Presumably, you must have been human once, although unfathomably long ago. Such a life has long been expunged from your memories following your rebirth in heaven, but your soul would have remained the same. You wonder if that is still true, if the weight of your sin, of your fall, and now of your new form in hell, have not wrought some damage upon your soul.

All Angels have the ability to look into the souls of other beings, an ability which becomes easier with rank and experience. You yourself have peered into many a mortal soul, known their sins, their desires, their actions. But no angel can peer into their own soul, as far as you know no being can, not even Michael. You wonder, if you could, what you would find in yourself now, the pure light of an untainted life, or swirling, sinful darkness.

Feeling uneasy, you pat the ground over the rat once, almost as though to exorcise the thought from yourself, and hurry back towards the front door, crossing your arms over your chest against the nighttime chill.

Once inside, you scoop up your sheets and carry them back upstairs, fumbling towards the cupboard on the second floor with the cleaning supplies, feeling confident that you will find something to get blood out of sheets.

You are elbow deep in the cupboard, shifting through gallon jugs of “Type A: The perfectionist’s solution to blood stains” and “In Vein: when other cleaners work in vain” in almost complete darkness, when you hear the soft sound of the floor creaking behind you. Panicking, you grab the nearest thing to your hand that even approaches a weapon, and roll to one side, pushing what you realize is a broom in between yourself and whatever is behind you.

“Wow, terrifying, really, I’m scared stiff.” Angel stands at the end of the broom handle in a tight fitting, sequined dress and fishnet stockings that make his white fur look stark in the dim hallway lighting. You blink up at him for a moment, confused. He looks haggard, you think that maybe you woke him up.

“Uh, babe, what is this, a robbery? Put the fuckin’ broom away its nasty.” Idly, Angel flicks a piece of cobweb from the end of the broom with one sparkling nail and raises an eyebrow at you.

“Oh, um, sorry,” You say, awkwardly shoving the broom back in the closet with one hand, “I, um, you startled me.”

“Yeah, you’re jumpy as hell, what else is new.” Angel runs a hand through his hair, which you notice is somewhat messier than normal, and turns on his heel to walk back towards his room.

“Wait,” You say on impulse, feeling vaguely that something is wrong. Angel turns around slowly, cocking his hip in annoyance, “Um, I was just wondering where you were today.” You offer, recalling Angel’s conspicuous absence during your meltdown.

“Working.” He offers sourly, examining the nails on one hand. You notice, now that you have a second, that Angel looks more than just a little messy, he looks exhausted. A nail on the hand he is inspecting is broken, and it must have drawn blood because the sleeve of his pale loose-fitting jacket is stained slightly. His hair is messy, and his dress seems slightly askew: the sweetheart neckline is off-center.

“Are you…okay?” you ask, and almost immediately regret it. Angel stiffens visibly, clenching his broken nail into a fist and looking down at you darkly.

“Peachy babe, just fuckin’ peachy, but hey I’m not the one creeping in hallways in the middle of the night, but that’s probably just some well-adjusted shit right?” Angel puffs out his chest.

Embarrassed, you backtrack. 

“It’s just, there’s some blood on your sleeve, and I was looking for cleaner anyways, I thought maybe…?” You trail off with a shrug and try to seem nonthreatening. Angel starts when you mention a stain and searches his sleeves before finding the spot and gasping dramatically.

“That son of a bitch! This shit was expensive too, _fuck_.” Angel sighs and tugs the jacket off, exposing a purplish bruise on his upper bicep, just visible through the thin white fur. You resist the urge to question. “Fine, damn, what’ve you got?” He crouches down next to you and holds out one of his lower hands.

“Um, there’s ‘Great White’ which is for white cloth, and, uh, ‘Blue Blood’ which says its safe for all fabrics,” you offer the two spray bottles to him, and he grabs the one with the shark teeth embossed on the front. Honestly the sheer variety of cleaners in this closet is intimidating, these two were just the closest ones you could find

“’Gets out every last drop’ huh? Does any of this bullshit actually work?” He asks with a grimace. You shrug.

“It worked for my carpet,” which, for the most part, it had. Angel makes a face, as though he remembers the literal bloodbath that was your hotel room not so long ago. He seems to think that is enough of an endorsement, so he straightens up before marching off towards his room, leaving you trailing behind with an armful of sheets.

“What are you, on the rag or somethin’?” He asks while you walk

You blink up at his back, trying to understand what he’s asking, but apparently your silence is enough of an answer

“That would explain why you’re so fuckin’ bitchy, tryna’ stab me with a fuckin’ broom” Angel snorts, and doesn’t say anything else.

Angel’s room is just as much of a mess as the last time you saw it, but the cloying haze of perfume and smoke is at least gone, giving you a better chance to look around. The floor is almost completely obscured by discarded clothes, and there is a visible layer of glitter on what little carpet you can see. Angel immediately lights a candle on a side table, and you wonder if clean, breathable air is offensive to his sensibilities.

Either way, Angel kicks open his bathroom door with one long leg and starts the sink, then attacks the sleeve of his jacket with the spray bottle. You watch for a few seconds, wondering if the solution will work, but eventually your gaze drifts to the general chaos of the room. There is a large ornate vanity next to the wardrobe, covered in a chaotic mess of makeup and pristine wigs. The wardrobe itself is half open, clothes spilling out onto the floor.

 _How does he find anything?_ You wonder, poking at a crumpled sweater on the floor with one talon.

In response, the sweater huffs indignantly and glides away from you with a derisive snort. This, you had not been expecting, and your immediate first thought is that Angel’s room is _such_ a mess that it has become some insane petri dish and brought life to his sweater.

From this perspective, shouting did not seem such an unreasonable response.

“ANGEL YOUR SWEATER IS ALIVE!” you yell incoherently, backpedaling into the bathroom with your sheets clutched protectively to your chest, lest they too come to life.

Your shout, apparently, startles Angel, who shouts back at you.

“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU YELLING?”

And, it would seem, Angel’s shouting startles the sweater, which comes rushing back towards you with a series of concerned grunts. Still yelling, you try to get out of the thing’s way but manage to snag the knit on one of your talons, yanking it from what you realize almost immediately is not a Lovecraftian horror born of Angel’s mess, but a small farm animal.

A pig, to be precise, one which, on sight, Angel squeals in delight and scoops up like a child, cooing and rubbing their noses together. The pig is small, flush pink and covered in rosy spots, and with a series of glassy, dark eyes staring benignly from its flank. Overall, the effect is mystifying.

“Oh there’s my sweet precious boy!” Angel gushes, “Did you scare feathers over there? Oh yes you did because you’re so scary and handsome! That’s my big man!” Angel flips the pig over in his arms and scratches its belly, causing the pig to squeal in glee.

 _Is that his…pet?_ You reel, trying to catch up with the scene before you.

“Um, Angel, what’s this?” You ask, dumfounded.

“First of all, rude. You mean ‘who’ is this,” Angel looks indignant for a moment, then smiles as he scratches the pig under the chin, “This is Fat Nuggets.”

The pig squeals at its name, perking its small pink ears up and looking between you and Angel with its two forward-facing eyes. You look around the messy room, dumfounded by the appearance of this random but admittedly adorable creature.

“Angel, have you had a pig in here this entire time?”

“Babe, I just told you his name is Fat Nuggets, don’t call him a ‘pig,’ he’s sensitive.” Angel kisses Fat Nuggets between his two tiny black horns and glares at you.

You just gesture helplessly around the room with one hand, emphasizing your previous question.

“What?” Angel asks, looking nonplussed.

“How? What have you been feeding him? And where—” Your confusion is interrupted by the sound of water hitting the floor, and you, Angel, and Fat Nuggets all turn to see the sink overflowing, drain clogged by Angels forgotten jacket.

Angel shrieks and thrusts Fat Nuggets, who grunts in protest, into your arms and rushes to the sink. You hold the pig awkwardly out in front of you, gripping it under its tiny forearms and anxiously avoiding the unblinking glassy eyes on its sides and the ring of sharp protruding spikes by its tail. You and Fat Nuggets have a moment to stare at each other in mutual confusion before it—he—starts to squirm and you place him gingerly on the floor. You expect the animal to run back into the room or maybe go towards Angel Dust who is mopping up the floor with a spare T-shirt, but instead he begins sniffing around your feet curiously.

Feeling skittish, you crouch down near him and watch his progress as he snuffles around your talons and sticks his nose into your downy leg feathers. You aren’t sure if he will bite you, or even if you are meant to pet him, so you hold out your hand limply for him to inspect with his round pink nose. _He really is cute_ , you think to yourself, watching his curly tail twitch as he sniffs your outstretched palm.

You aren’t exactly a natural with animals. You had seen them on earth, and purportedly many angels had a knack for interacting with them, but you had never really thought to try. Your job had been so important then, so all-encompassing, you don’t even remember sparing much of a thought for animals, even the pets, focusing almost exclusively on humans. Now, with one in front of you, particularly one that doesn’t seem to pose an active threat, you feel lost on how to react. Without your single-minded angelic focus dominating your thoughts, you can actually look at this animal, and you find that you consider him quite charming. The big reflective dark eyes, the triangular folded ears, the round pink belly, all of it is completely disarming. Even his mottled pink spots seem to match Angel’s, the two make a natural pair.

Fat Nuggets, seeming to decide that your hand is not going to pet him on its own, turns his head and nuzzles into your palm with a delighted grunt. Startled, you almost pull away, but hesitate when he makes no move to bite you. Gingerly, you stroke his head and scratch at his neck the way Angel had, and Fat Nuggets fairly melts, rolling over and exposing his stomach for more scratching.

“He likes tummy rubs,” Angel adds grinning at you from the sink, and when you hesitate, he adds, “honey, he’s not a feral fuckin’ dog, don’t be such a pussy.”

You blink at Angel, and then look down at Fat Nuggets, who squirms and blinks up at you with dark eyes, before hesitantly petting his stomach with one hand. His wiry fur is sparse on his rounded belly, and his skin is surprisingly soft, with a big heart-shaped pink splotch near his chest. He looks like a toy come to life.

“You really are jumpy, huh babe?” Angel cackles while Fat Nuggets expertly melts your heart into a puddle of slush, “Aint’cha never had a pet before, or is Nugs just extra scary?” His voice rises several octaves, “Aren’t you baby? Yes, you are sooo scary!”

Fat Nuggets oinks enthusiastically, and you can’t help but smile at his display.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really met a friendly animal,” You say absently, inspecting one of Fat Nuggets’s tiny cloven hoofs while you scratch his neck with one talon. You sense Angel looking at you and glance up to see that he has paused in rinsing out his jacket.

“Christ babe, what kind of shitty boring-ass life did you have? I swear talking to you is such a fuckin’ buzzkill.” You frown.

“It’s not that every animal I’ve seen is _unfriendly_. I suppose I just never paid much attention to the ones that didn’t want to kill me before.” There are no native animals in heaven, aside from the Cherubs (not to be confused with Cherubim, of course), fluffy sheep-like angelic beings that you had found rather annoying. But then, your paths never crossed much in heaven or on earth, where Cherubs don’t often tread, and earth animals you had only ever observed from a middle distance.

Ironically, you realize, you have had a lot more hands on experience with animals in hell than anywhere else. Perhaps in your human life you had had more practice, but then, that was long gone now.

“Ya see, right there. Ya can’t just say shit like that its fuckin’ weird, who thinks like that, seriously?” Angel snorts, then raises the jacket for inspection, “Well fuck me sideways that actually worked.” Angel looks impressed, and hangs the jacket with finality over his towel rack.

Fat Nuggets, seeing Angel move towards you, rolls over and abandons you without a second thought, racing forward to be scooped up in Angel’s four hands. The spray bottle lands with a sloshing thud on the ground next to you, traded for the squealing pig.

“Alright toots, scram, you’re an eyesore.” Angel waves you away with one arm and sashays past you towards his wardrobe.

You blink up at Angel, your brain still trying to take note’s on Angel’s feedback on what constituted a “normal” thing to say and what didn’t, and your hesitation makes Angel look back at you over his thin shoulder.

“Oh, are you staying for the show?” He bends down to put Fat Nuggets on the floor, straightening his legs and arching his back unnaturally as he does. You tilt your head, confused. “Well, that’s fine too babe, but remember, I charge extra for broads, and I don’t do free shows, so,” Angel grabs the zipper on his sequined dress, and gets about half way through unzipping it before you realize what he is implying. With a blush that reaches all the way past your neck feathers, you gather the bottle of cleaner and your sheets, and disappear before his dress hits the floor, with Angel’s cackling laugh chasing you all the way back to your room.

You rinse your sheets in an embarrassed fury, throw them in the washing machine. Later, laying on the floor and staring at the dark ceiling, you contemplate the continued annoyance of gender politics, and how much easier your life had been without genitalia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on schedule baby! Yessss. This has been a really good week for me, I hope you all are doing well too. I actually started doing some yoga, since I can’t go outside and I never leave my house even when I can, and yoga can be done in this tiny apartment lol. I’m actually really enjoying it, and exercising is really improving my mood! I even ate a salad this week, which, holy shit. I usually live off of frosted flakes and microwave burritos so this is big for me. 
> 
> ANYWAYS, I hoped you all enjoyed this chapter. There is going to be a brief time-skip coming up in the next few chapters, as well as some faster pacing overall as we move towards the end of Part 2, so I hope you all are ready for a lot more Alastor lol.
> 
> Additionally, I wanted your guy’s opinion on something. Part 2 should be done in about 10-15 chapters, which will be within the next 2 months, possibly as little as a month if I can hack it. Would you all prefer that I move straight into Part 3 or take a month or so to do some editing on what has already been posted. This story is INSANELY long, and I know that it could really benefit from some streamlining, as well as some minor edits to improve continuity across chapters, since I have added/changed things. If you all would like, I can take a short break to edit, and probably cut down on the word count significantly, which could be helpful if any of you are prone to re-reading fics (like me lol)! If you all want/ are interested in ongoing edits to the story, and would not have a problem with a break for editing let me know. The other option, of course, is to continue AS IS, and work through the end of the fic, and then do some editing afterwards, so those who like to re-read or come back to fics or anything like that could do so then. I am totally good with either of these options :) Let me know what you think! I know my pace has slowed considerably from the one-chapter-a-day I was hitting in the first 20 or so chapters of this, so I totally get if people aren’t crazy about more breaks lol. 
> 
> As always, feedback is appreciated! Thank you to everyone who has left comments, kudos, and bookmarks! You all are amazing <3 Additionally, feel free to check in to the Instagram for this fic, as I am posting the map as our MC draws it as a fun little side project, and to help people keep track of things (since I don’t think I’ve read a fic that actually moves between floors)   
> Link to the Insta is: https://www.instagram.com/chrysiridia_fanfic/
> 
> AND AN EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS CREATED FAN ART I ABSOLUTELY ADORE YOU GUYS YOU ARE AMAZING AAAAAAAH!!!!


	42. What You Would Seem to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, you have a conversation that doesn't go as planned.

Chapter 36: What You Would Seem to Be

* * *

The third floor is tricky.

The day after Alastor leaves a rat in your bed, you are twenty minutes late to lunch when you can’t find your way to the third floor landing. This is particularly confusing since, as far as you can tell, the third floor is laid out like one continuous loop, and therefore walking straight in any direction should, theoretically, lead back to the stairs. After your 5th right turn, you realize that either your concept of the floor layout is wrong, or the staircase has simply ceased to exist. 

Eventually, you have the idea to look at the room numbers, knowing that 301 is the closest room to the stairs. The numbers tell you where you are on the floor, you can’t get lost while watching them, surely. Once you do this, you find that the staircase is exactly where it is supposed to be.

This does not explain the twenty minutes you spent making right turn after right turn in an endless square.

At lunch, Alastor asks you if you are alright, and you say yes. Then he asks you again, and you say yes again. The third time he asks you, you finally look at him, over an infuriatingly mesmerizing plate of Mac and Cheese that until then had demanded your full attention.

“Darling, I just want to know if you’re _all right_.” You watch, mouth full, as Alastor’s grin grows fractionally more smug, and realize that he is mocking you. How on earth he knew what you were doing on the third floor when the entire staircase seemed to have disappeared, that was beyond you, but, swallowing your food, you do manage to respond evenly.

“I’m perfectly fine, Alastor, I just _left_ my notebook on the third floor.” Alastor raises a thin eyebrow so high it disappears under his fluffy scarlet hairline. You give him your most innocent smile, and hold eye contact until Angel’s voice breaks your standoff.

“Will you two knock it the fuck off? I’m _trying_ to eat here, Jesus, that eye contact is fucking obscene.”

This distracts you, and sparks a rather spirited argument between you, Angel, and eventually Vaggie, about the merits of “Jesus” as a turn of phrase when used in hell. Eventually, Husk ends the argument by telling everyone to shut up and “eat their goddamn food,” which you also find ironic, but don’t argue with. It’s strange but, the arguments over dinner actually serve to calm you down, perhaps hell is finally getting to you. 

You head back to work largely having forgotten about Alastor’s implicit surveillance.

And besides, the third floor is tricky, there is a lot to distract you, at least for the rest of the evening.

The next day, having spent all night looking over your nonsensical sketches trying to fit as many right turns as possible onto one floor, you decide to simplify your approach and count the room numbers. This begins easily enough, with the odd numbered rooms on the outside of the hall and occasional even numbered rooms towards the inside, until the end of the first hallway when you encounter room 319.5, a narrow, nearly half-sized door wedged awkwardly into the corner of the hall.

Then again, you had spent the better part of an hour yesterday running in circles on this floor, passing room after room, and yet this is the first time you are noticing this strange, half-sized, awkwardly-placed door. This is to say nothing about the room number, _319.5?_

This seems particularly ridiculous in light of the fact that several room numbers on both the second _and_ third floors are missing entirely, which makes the idea of a _half_ room all the more absurd. After a moment, however, you decide that this weird number must simply be a broom closet or some other addendum—a crawlspace maybe—that doesn’t need a proper number, and for some reason was given a “.5” to mark it apart. After all, this hotel has been added on to multiple times, it stands to reason that different floors might follow different design rules. You think, at least.

This speculation makes perfect, logical sense to you, right up until the moment that you open door 319.5, which is not, in fact, a tiny broom closet or other odd misfit space, but in fact leads to an entirely separate and impressively large room.

Even at your small size, you have to duck to move through the door, which seems more appropriately sized for Niffty than anyone else, and you emerge blinking into the low light of this new area. The space is tall, at least two regular stories, but dimly lit, giving off a kind of claustrophobic mustiness that belies its size. Peering around, you are surrounded by towering, maze-like dark shelves, all almost over-full with books.

 _A library?_ You wonder to yourself, drifting towards one shelf and peering over the collection. You pluck a book off the shelf which looks to be written in German, and leaf through the heavy pages in a puff of fine gray dust. Unlike most of the lower floors, this room is not immaculately clean, meaning it has somehow escaped Niffty’s manic attentions up to this point. When you replace the book, which turns out to be a collection of folk tales, you leave a conspicuous dust-free mark on the shelf. The effect is eerie, and oddly evocative of an old cathedral. The whole space holds a strange sense of timelessness, like it has always been in this pseudo-disrepair, always musty and dark and cloying, like it would continue to be so even if it were full of people. 

Curious, you navigate the stygian towers with an almost uncanny sense of caution. You recall once as a young angel being given a tour of the armory, and struggling between an intense desire to touch _everything_ , and a certainty that doing so would bring all of heaven’s wrath down upon your head. This library has the same sense of intractable authority, hanging an implicit threat over you, almost daring you to touch one of its entombed books, daring you to move something. 

That weird sensation is only compounded by the fact that, for an impressive amount of your quiet snooping, you don’t see any signs that anyone else has even _been_ in this library. None of the chairs seem to have been used, none of the casual throw blankets in any degree of disarray, and absolutely none of the thick dust on the shelves disturbed. The place is like a tomb, and as you pass row after row of books in every language under the sun, you start to wonder if maybe you won’t be stuck here, wandering for a hellish eternity until your own death. The whole place is so wholly _unlived_ in, that when you do, eventually, stumble on signs of life, you find them even more startling and unexpected than, say, an actual dead body would have been.

You blink for a moment at the area, tucked into one of the seemingly endless little corners in this maze. An armchair has been pulled up to one of the shelves, and a little brass reading lamp, sitting on a nearby desk, is turned on, casting a warm, almost cozy glow over the scene. A thick, maroon blanket is draped over the back of the chair, and when you place a hand on it, you can almost imagine that it is warm, like someone had been here just a moment before. Vaguely unsettled, you drift forward and crouch down by the bookshelf, trailing one hand over the tracks in the dust. The section appears to be French, and you pick a book at random from the several that seem to have been pulled recently.

 _Poetry?_ You wonder, flipping through the pages idly and skimming something by Baudelaire. _Someone was in here reading romantic French poetry?_ Somehow that thought strikes you as terribly mundane, given the intense _gravitas_ this library seems to have. Picturing someone coming in, sitting down in an armchair, and browsing poetry is so domestic, sweet even, it’s almost silly in this cave-like setting. You can’t help but smile, as you set the book back on the shelf, feeling a bit silly yourself for having been so intimidated by a run-down library.

Still crouching, you follow the bookshelf, reading embossed titles where the dust is disturbed. There is a lot of French, most of it poetry and most of it decently old, but eventually the shelf rolls over to Latin, and you find yourself in something of an occult section. Most of the titles seem specific to hell, some referencing magic, many listing names of people, places, and things which you don’t recognize. One conspicuously dust-free title, at the flickering edge of the lamplight, draws your attention. Pushing your hair out of your face and squinting into the swimming shadows, you pull the book out and stare at the black leather cover, embossed red.

 _Sanctus Occidere_ , it says in oddly plain script.

“Holy killing?” You wonder aloud, translating the title literally. You flip the book open, and shuffle through a few of the pages. The book seems to be a…guide? There are step by step instructions for something, large pages with illustrations of weaponry, a detailed diagram of some sort of cage, and then something that makes your breath catch.

It’s an anatomical drawing, of a figure standing, its skin peeled back to expose the major organs, each one labeled. Half of the face is retracted, with only one side of a wide, sewn-shut grin visible under a single yellow eye.

 _Liver_ , you read, _stomach, kidney, lungs, wings._

It’s an angel. An Archangel.

This book is a how-to-guide for killing angels, you realize with a lurch. _It’s not “holy killing” it’s “to kill a holy being.”_

“Darling, I didn’t know you liked to read.”

Alastor’s voice comes so out of nowhere, and so intensely close to the back of your head, that you actually yelp when it breaks into your thoughts.

Pitching forward, you spin around to face him, knocking into the bookshelf and making it sway precariously. Above you, something shifts, and you look up to see a heavy, leather-bound tome fall off of its shelf directly above you. Your stomach drops, but before you can so much as flinch, Alastor snatches the book out of the air with one slender hand, close enough to your face that you can feel the air shift.

“You really must be more careful darling, one of these days you really shall hurt yourself and I won’t be there to save you, how tragic that would be.” Alastor snickers, placing the book back on its shelf and bending down towards you with an ear-splitting grin. Your stomach stays determinedly on the floor as his pointed, yellow teeth fill your vision, and your hand grips the only thing you have as a weapon, the book, with white knuckles.

“Now, do tell, what _are_ you reading. I didn’t think of you as one for academic pursuits and I must say I am simply delighted to find you taking an interest in classical literature.” Alastor’s flamboyant speech snaps you out of your temporary panic, and back into something resembling rational thought, so when he reaches out with one dark hand for your book, you duck smoothly to one side and out of his reach, plastering on a fake smile and summoning your most condescending voice, holding the book securely behind your back.

“I have many interests Alastor, none of which, I believe, are any of your concern. Now, if you’re finished sneaking up behind me I have a hotel to map, so I’ll just be—” And then, Alastor is gone, without so much of a puff of smoke, and the feathers on the back of your neck stand up. Reeling around, you find Alastor behind you, one hand extended as though to grab the book from your hand, looking thoroughly startled at being caught in the act. You back up several steps, keeping him in your line of sight—though you doubt it will do you much good.

“Quick on the draw darling, very impressive.” He says with something like a bow, if one can bow while making threatening eye contact, “I suppose I wasn’t quite done ‘sneaking’ as you so elegantly put it, but I will be in just a moment,” Alastor winks at you, and snaps his fingers, and then he is gone, and the book is gone, and you’re left spinning in place, trying to catch him before he can appear behind you like your deranged shadow.

“The _Sanctus Occidere_ , _”_ Alastor fairly purrs. You find him sitting in the armchair, turned now to face you, book open in one hand, looking amused, “An excellent choice I must say, one of Hell’s classics, and a gripping read besides.” Alastor glances up at you, and you notice that his ridiculous monocle had been replaced with an equally ridiculous pair of half-moon glasses. You can’t tell if this ruins or adds to the overall pompous air he is practically breathing into the room.

“I do particularly enjoy the section on butchering, I find cuts map rather chaotically onto an upright form, certainly one with wings, there’s all sorts of fabulous muscle there.” You feel a bit queasy, and hope that your pale complexion hides the fact that your face must have gone white. Under your corset, your restricted wings itch. You can’t tell if he is trying to intimidate you—well, he is _always_ trying to intimidate you, but you can’t tell if the implication is that he knows that you are an angel or merely that he has considered the logistics of _butchering a person_.

Both of these are thoroughly intimidating, and you resign yourself to repeating a mantra of _he doesn’t know_ , just to maintain composure.

“But, darling, what could a little whisp of a demon like you possibly want with a book like this? Not planning a hunting excursion, are we?” He looks at you over his glasses.

“I just picked it off the shelf at random,” You say, which, while probably not strictly a lie, still tastes bitter on your tongue. Alastor’s eyes narrow slightly, and his grin grows another impossible fraction of an inch. As you suspected, you are a terrible liar, even when the lies are half-truths.

“You shouldn’t lie sweetheart, its unbecoming.” He snaps the book shut in his one hand, not looking away from you. You feel a bit faint, and try to regain control of the discussion. _Don’t let him get to you,_ you remind yourself, and then, for good measure, _he doesn’t know_.

“I saw the newspaper, yesterday.” You hedge, and Alastor tilts his head ever so slightly towards you, “One of the overlords, Valentino, has a bounty out on the Angel. I was surprised by how high it was.” This is true, so far. Alastor however, looks unimpressed.

“Looking for a payday then? Oh dear, and here I thought you were smarter than that, how terribly uninteresting.” Alastor sighs dramatically, resting his chin on one hand.

And for some reason, this bothers you.

In retrospect, uninteresting is _exactly_ what you want. Uninteresting is what you have been trying to make yourself, to Alastor: uninteresting, unthreatening, unamusing. Alastor is like Michael, he plays with a toy until he either breaks it or becomes bored, so logically, bored is _exactly_ what you need him to be.

 _Bored_ is what you should have made Michael. You know this. You should have kept your head down, not rocked the boat, not broken rules you knew should never have been broken. Maybe, if you had done that, you wouldn’t be here.

But you hadn’t _been_ boring. You hadn’t avoided Michael’s scrutiny, you had cultivated it, pushing and prodding at the edges of the rules, at the limits of the status quo. You had broken rules from your very first assignment on earth, looking into the soul of that first cursed **priest** , shouted your truth at Michael from the defense stand, chained and accused but not boring. Never boring. Dangerous enough to banish, too interesting to kill outright.

In retrospect, you should have let Alastor find you boring, and, you know, you would lay awake tonight wondering _why_ it was that you responded to Alastor’s dismissal. _Why_ you had corrected him. _Why_ , just like with Michael, you had a need to make yourself heard, make yourself seen, made yourself understood, made yourself _interesting_. You would wonder why you hadn’t kept your mouth shut, why you hadn’t learned your lesson when it had been branded into your flesh.

 _I know I can’t win,_ you will tell yourself, and you will wonder why you still choose to play.

But something in Alastor’s stare, something like disappointment, something like dismissal, it gets under your skin. It makes you want to set him straight. Something about that look gives you courage you have absolutely no claim to, courage that, if you were smart, or had even a modicum of self-preservation instinct, you would know was foolish.

But, then, courage makes you say stupid things.

“No.” You say, back ramrod straight, “I wanted to know if demons really find angels so hard to kill.” Because on some level, you want to know. You want to know if demons fear you, even disgraced, even **fallen**. 

Alastor blinks for a moment, his eternal smile almost confused, and then visibly perks up, his fluffy ears twitching, and his intense red stare focusing on you.

“Did you now?” He drums one dark hand against his face, “and, what did you uncover?” Alastor is sitting, which puts him roughly at your eye level, and maybe that gives your courage too. Courage to be stupidly, stupidly _interesting._

Because, hey, demons _did_ find angels hard to kill, hard enough that someone wrote a book about the subject, hard enough that some rich kingpin would assign your head a completely absurd bounty without so much as a whisper that you were alive. 

“Alastor,” His ears twitch again at his name, and you can’t help but smile slightly, a smile of the damned, because no matter how sure you are that _he doesn’t know_ , you’re just as sure that he _suspects_. He knows something is off about you, and here you are adding fuel to the fire like a suicidal madman. “How would you kill an angel?”

Alastor, for his part, doesn’t even blink, doesn’t even appear to consider, before he answers you.

“I wouldn’t” He says with a feral grin, “I’d find them so much more _interesting_ alive.”

And then you’re laughing, because for all you have wanted to be uninteresting, to fly under Alastor’s radar—for all that you know you will _continue_ to strive to be uninteresting—for this one insane moment you can’t help but appreciate that _interesting_ is the only thing that would keep you alive, if Alastor knew what you are. Because whatever Alastor _suspects_ about you, whatever he does or doesn’t know, he has an uncanny way of making it not matter, in the end.

“You know,” You say, through your laughter. Alastor looks bemused, as though your volatile emotions are the subject of a particularly charming episode of some television show he doesn’t quite understand, “for once I think we agree.”

…

There are many things which annoy you about Alastor. That is, discounting all those things which make you fear for your life, there is a whole slew of general, obnoxious behavior that just sets your feathers on edge.

On the top of that list, as of today, is the fact that you can never tell what he is thinking.

Entertaining Alastor in such a spectacular way as you so stupidly did in the library, you had assumed, would lead to further inquisition on the part of the Red Menace. This, it turns out, was not the case. After you finished laughing and began to realize what a colossally stupid thing you had just done, Alastor had merely excused himself with a condescending pat on your head (also on the list of annoying Alastor behavior), and promptly disappeared from the library. 

This sent you into a brief but haywire panic, as you half-expected him to rematerialize with a Valliant weapon and an Angel-like catchphrase—something profane that doesn’t make much sense—to split you open hip to collarbone and who knows what else from there. This did not happen either.

Eventually, you were forced to accept that Alastor had simply gone about his day, continued unbothered in his routine just the same as if you had said _nothing_ and let him be _uninterested_ , the only difference being that now he has substantially more than circumstantial evidence to connect you with angels. 

_Stupid,_ you berate yourself, sitting in one of the unused library armchairs and trying to work the library space into you map on the third floor. _What do I care what he thinks of me? So what if he thinks I’m some boring nobody looking to collect the bounty on an angel’s head? That’s what I want isn’t it?_

And it is, it _is_ what you want. You want to be boring, to be of his radar, certainly, and earlier…well that had been a fluke. Alastor has an infuriating way of getting under your skin, even when you focus on keeping him _out_ , which is another annoying trait to add to the list. He manipulated you, surely. 

_I’ve given away way too much already,_ you think, setting your pen down with a beleaguered sigh. And you have, not just about your angelic connections, but about yourself, what bothers you, how he can push you just a little bit closer to the edge. You need to get a grip, get control of the situation.

But that’s just it, how can you retake control when you don’t know what he’s thinking, don’t know what he’s planning, don’t even know what he _wants_. And sure, today’s little episode might come back to bite you, but that’s just what you get for playing chicken with the Radio Demon.

 _“I’d find them so much more_ interesting _alive”_

You throw your hands up in defeat. You aren’t getting anything done anyways, and it’s probably close to dinner by now, you might as well stop for today and finish the floor sketch tomorrow, since you already did a walkthrough. This floor is a pain to navigate, but it seems only to be so when you aren’t paying attention. The second you take your eyes off the room numbers, or let your mind wander, you find yourself turned around and in some random corner. You hadn’t been able to find the library again until you physically counted off rooms, which was a pain, but at least there was some logic to it.

 _Who am I kidding?_ You wonder, stuffing your sketches into your notebook, and ducking out the low door to the library into the hall, _there is no logic to any of this, the less I think about it, the better._

This, of course, gets you lost _again_ , and you pass by room 304 several times before you manage to focus on counting off the numbers and find the staircase.

You hadn’t realized but the air on the third floor is different from the air on the lower floors. It’s not anything significant, not enough to be noticed moving up, but when you descend the stairs you find yourself a little light headed, as though descending from altitude. You are halfway to a headache (something you _never_ got as an angel and are not enjoying discovering in hell) by the time you reach the ground floor and flop backwards onto the lobby couch with a dramatic sigh.

From across the room, you hear husker grunt, and a glass clink, and realize he must be mixing you a drink because _of course he is_. You smile in spite of yourself.

“I’m okay Husk, I don’t need a drink.” You raise one hand over the back of the couch and wave it in his general direction, watching the creepy unblinking eyeballs on the furniture follow the motion.

“Fuck you, I was making myself a drink.” Husker shoots back, sounding vaguely embarrassed. _At least I’m not the only bad liar around here._

“Well, thank you anyways,” You respond, letting your hand fall back on the couch and closing your eyes. You think perhaps you drift for a while, halfway asleep. You can hear Husk talking to himself occasionally, usually strings of unintelligible profanity punctuated by clinking bottles, but you also hear something else, something low like a rumble. 

You furrow your brow, trying to pinpoint the sound as it rises up slowly around you. It’s footsteps, no, marching? You hear talons clicking on the hard wood of the lobby, marching in synch, and then the low, mournful, horrible tone of Gabriel’s horn, calling you to march with the rest.

“Hey,” a voice yanks you from your half-sleep, and you shoot up on the couch, eyes wide, almost smacking your forehead into the face of the person standing above you.

“What?!” you yelp, looking around you, half expecting to see your battalion, armored and ready for battle right here in the lobby. Instead, all you see is Vaggie, looking startled, leaning over the back of the couch.

“Okay what the hell?” Vaggie asks, pushing her hair back from her missing eye in a gesture of exasperation.

“Sorry, I was, um, sleeping. You startled me.” You blink, waiting for your heartbeat to slow back to normal levels.

“At least she didn’t try to tear your fuckin’ arm off” Husk grumbles from the bar, and you feel yourself blush slightly. Vaggie looks between the two of you and seems to lose the will to argue, opting instead to throw her hands up in resignation.

“Look, whatever, I just wanted to ask you about the rats.” Vaggie sighs.

“What about them?”

“You said they were in the storage closet?” Vaggie asks, gesturing to the door behind her. You sit up to look over the back of the chair and spot the door, wide open into the persistent darkness beyond. You double take, and then jump over the back of the couch and rush to slam the thing shut.

“Don’t leave it open! The whole room is infested!” You look back at Vaggie, who is standing by the couch with her arms crossed, looking annoyed.

“No, it’s not. There’s nothing in there but old furniture.”

You blink, and then listen at the door for a moment. _Nothing_. Tentatively, you open it a crack and peer inside, then a bit more, and finally wide enough to walk into. You take a few steps, and rattle a stack of chairs with one foot. Nothing moves, or scurries, or squeaks, or anything of the sort.

“I went all the way to the back, the whole thing is empty, are you sure you saw them in here?” Vaggie asks from the doorway.

“Yeah, just the other day, there were dozens of them—” You can’t fight the urge to stare over Vaggie’s shoulder at Husk, who is leaning on the bar and sipping from a glass of amber liquid, whiskers twitching. _Husk is a cat, but_ … Husker, as if sensing your stare glances at you, makes a sour face, raises one middle finger, and continues drinking.

 _Definitely not Husk_ , you’ve barely seen him eat the whole time he’s been here, there’s no way he is hunting rats in his spare time, _even if he is a cat_.

You wonder if that thought qualifies as racist. 

“—And I bought all of these traps because you said there were a shit ton, are you sure this is the right closet—" Vaggie continues, but you aren’t listening, instead performing a sequence of mental acrobatics that lead you to only one obvious conclusion.

Because, really, who else could or _would_ get rid of a roomful of rats, or leave one in your bed for that matter.

You feel…stupid.

“Hello? I’m talking to you here don’t just zone out” Vaggie’s hand snaps in front of your face, and you turn to her.

“Sorry Vaggie, I guess Alastor already took care of it.” You respond, trying to look apologetic.

Vaggie stares t you for a moment, as though waiting for you to continue, as if any explanation for this other than _Alastor did_ it would make any real sense. When all you do is shrug apologetically, she groans dramatically and turns away.

“Yeah well it would be nice if someone told me this shit _before_ I went out and got rat traps,” She snatches a plastic bag off the floor and starts to walk away, then pauses to toss back over her shoulder, “And tell him to fix that fucking door, radio asshole.” Vaggie grumbles, stalking towards the stairs.

You watch her go for a second, and then wedge the door shut on its broken frame and drift over towards the bar, where Husk is still idly sipping on his drink and looking generally misanthropic.

“Hey Husk,” You ask, collapsing onto a barstool and rubbing at the base of your horn with one palm, “do you ever feel like you’ve gotten yourself into something you weren’t prepared for?”

Husk snorts into his drink, then finishes it off with a gulp.

“Kid, I work for the fuckin’ Radio Demon. Every fuckin’ day.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, “me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Hi again! Sorry for the slight delay on this chapter, but I really wanted to get this interaction right because this is a scene I have had in my brain almost since I had the idea for the fic. I ended up rewriting it several times, but I'm really happy with how it finally turned out, and I hope you all are too!   
> I'm going to keep the notes short today, since this chapter is pretty beefy, but expect another chapter on Friday (maybe Saturday since i was delayed with this one :3)   
> Oh, and a quick note on Alastor's choice in poetry, Baudelaire is a french poet from the 19th century, and the central figure in the Naturalist movement. His work focused on showing life "as it is," and not shying away from the gory details, which often lends his work a melancholic tone. I had to read some of him in school, and while I'm not much of a poetry buff, I found that I did like some of his work. It certainly has an Alastor vibe, who I imagine is a total sap for Byronic poetry, especially with a dark tone  
> Okay, thats all from me guys, see you all on Friday (or maybe Saturday)!


	43. Mile High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE WE GET INTO TODAYS CHAPTER: I would like to say a very very special thank you to two lovely people who have created fanart for this fic. venez_ao on instagram and littlewashu45 thank you both for your amazing fanart! You two are awesome! There are links to both of these pieces in the NOTES section of todays chapter, be sure to give them a look and send some good vibes their way! seriously, you two are awesome, thank you so much!
> 
> Anyways: on with the show (and its a spicy one) 
> 
> In this chapter, you take a plunge and get an unexpected result.

Chapter 37: Mile High

* * *

You are beginning to think that the hotel hates you.

This, you know, is a ridiculous thought. The hotel is a building, an inanimate object, it doesn’t feel or think, much less love or hate.

But right now, the hotel is beginning to remind you of a very specific, very annoying red presence in your life. To be honest, you had suspected Alastor, at first. 

Everything had been going fine, as fine as can be expected while trying to map an architectural nightmare such as the Hazbin Hotel (which…you are very sure that the sign used to say “Happy Hotel,” yet another confusing detail). You had been checking the rooms on the third floor, since Charlie told you no one was living there and gave you the skeleton key, and that had been going about as well as could be expected. Half the room numbers were missing, or in the wrong place, and more than once you exited a room to find yourself on the other end of the hall, but the rooms themselves all looked fine. Most of them were close to immaculate—which meant that Niffty could find her way around, at least—and all were fully furnished, ready for a guest to check in, should anyone other than Angel deign to visit the hotel.

You even made a note on your map sketch that all of the rooms on this floor were clean and usable, and you were thinking about moving up to the fourth floor. _Maybe_ , in light of that, you weren’t paying the _closest_ attention when you stepped through the adjoining door to get to the next room, and _maybe_ you didn’t look at your surroundings before shutting the door behind you, but really, how could you have expected to end up _outside_. 

This balcony is _tiny_ for heaven’s sake, you can barely take a full step between the wall and the railing, and it’s the _only_ balcony on this floor, as far as you can tell. You lean out over the wrought iron and look both ways down the smooth side of the building, but you don’t see anything sticking out. No other balconies, just flat windows.

You sigh and rest your head against the cool metal, letting your arms dangle over the edge. This really did seem like the work of Alastor, and when you first turned around from the closed door and found yourself _outside the hotel_ and on a glorified _ledge_ nearly ten meters high, you may or may not have yelled a bit.

_“I swear, I’m going to kill him.” You mutter, tugging on the locked door in exasperation. “I’m going to poison his dinner with venom from one of those insane rats, I’m going to break his stupid little monocle in half and stab him with it, I’m going to shove that obnoxious microphone so far up his—”_

_Not one of my finer moments_ , that you can admit, but this _reeks_ of Alastor. It has his petty, reality-manipulating paw prints _all_ over it, you can’t blame yourself for jumping to the most obvious conclusion. Alastor has a _history_.

But, then again, this particular prank doesn’t really make much sense for Alastor, when you really think about it. When he had locked you in the closet, he only waited a few moments before coming to the door and antagonizing you, because, that’s the thing, Alastor has no self-control.

And, well, you’ve been on this balcony now for nearly ten minutes and he hasn’t shown up to gloat or insult you from the other side of the door or push you over the ledge and catch you at the last second or anything like that. And if Alastor requires one thing, it’s attention. Leaving you to die on the side of a building without getting any credit for it seems pretty outside his wheelhouse.

Which brings you to a second, much less logical conclusion. The hotel _itself_ is pranking you. It could be a coincidence, sure, maybe you just happened to be distracted and walk through the _one door_ on the _entire floor_ that leads to a balcony. And, sure, the door could have just so happened to lock behind you in spite of the fact that you have had to manually lock every door you have come across so far.

But then again _no_ , that makes just as much if not less sense than this being an intentional play by _someone_ , and if not Alastor then…

 _Is the next best candidate really a building?_ You wonder bleakly, staring through the wrought iron bars of the balcony down to the ground far below. This whole “mapping” job is becoming a headache. You knock your horns against the bars, frustrated. It’s not that you want to quit, if anything you want to finish your job just so you can rub it in Alastor’s smug face, but this hotel operates on some crazy physics-defying rule set that you just can’t seem to figure out.

The wind picks up slightly and ruffles your exposed neck feathers. You don’t get cold easily, but it is becoming a bit chilly up here, even for you. With an exasperated sigh, you straighten up and turn back towards the door.

The balcony is narrow, too narrow for you to get any power behind a kick to knock the door down, but you try anyway, hoping to get lucky.

The door thuds when your foot impacts it, but barely shakes at the force, and all you succeed in doing is pushing your back painfully into the cold metal railing.

 _That’s an idea_.

Going for leverage, you brace your back against the railing and your feet against the door, trying to force the door open.

Nothing happens for a few long seconds, and then you hear an ominous groaning _pop_ and the railing shifts behind you, dipping you backwards and making your wings flex instinctively under your corset.

Flailing, you catch yourself and lean back against the wall, staring dubiously over the sagging railing towards the ground very _very_ far below.

 _If I ever see Michael again, I am going to personally cut off his wings, just so he knows what an awful inconvenience it is_. This of course, is a lie, because if you ever saw Michael again it would probably be moments before your death, and you would likely not do much other than run in the opposite direction, but the idea feels nice. 

_And I’ll pluck all his feathers out and glue them to my wings_ , you test the railing with one hand, where it has pulled away from the wall, and a shower of plaster fragments crumble away into the wind, _and then I’ll fly circles around him and laugh._

You pause for a second and glance up at the murky red sky. _When did I get so vindictive?_ Sure, angels are fierce by nature, but you are starting to feel like your daydreams are becoming increasingly violent as time goes on. Part of you wants to blame it on hell, but another part knows that it probably has more to do with frustration at yourself than anything. You never used to be so helpless before.

 _I’m not helpless_ , you chastise yourself, _I can find a way out of here_. You lean over the railing and try to gauge the distance to the ground. It’s not _that_ far, you are decently sure that if you dropped from here you would land mostly unharmed. But, then again, something about the idea of falling, without wings, it’s a little too familiar for comfort.

But, really, what option do you have? You can’t open the door, there is no way to climb up the wall at least not without scratching half the plaster off to get a foothold, and you are starting to develop a habit of breaking things that you _don’t_ want to indulge. _And besides, Vaggie would kill me_. As it is you have already broken the balcony.

Something murky swims at the edge of your vision, making you look sharply to the left. You blink for a moment, wondering if a bird or something had flown by (not that you have seen many birds in hell so far), but when nothing materializes, you shake your head. _I’m making myself anxious,_ you decide, wrinkling your nose at the faint, dusty-sweet smell of the wind, like ozone, and focusing once again on the ground below.

 _I have to jump_ , you tell yourself, _it’s not far, I’ll be fine_.

You shimmy out past the broken end of the railing and stand on the edge, looking down, trying to gauge the distance, when something occurs to you.

 _Have I ever actually…fallen before?_ Obviously you **fell** from heaven, but you had healed almost instantly, the last act of your angelic abilities. But actually _falling_ , or jumping, from a height and landing without wings…you don’t know that you have ever done that before, strictly speaking.

Obviously, you have _landed_ from jumping, and landed from flights, but usually those landings are…softer? You can run as you land, break the fall by flapping. This is a straight drop, which isn’t really a motion you have ever attempted without wings to break it. How are you even supposed to do this? Land on all fours? Roll? You try to remember maneuvering in Wonderland, digging through the memories to see if you took anything resembling a fall from this height.

 _I guess I should try to roll?_ Then again, you really aren’t that high up, even a bad landing from this height wouldn’t kill you, you wonder if you should just go for it and hope for the best.

 _I’m overthinking this_ , you decide finally, feeling your palms start to sweat against the railing, _just jump_.

You take a deep breath, shift your wings slightly under the corset and then let go of the railing leaning forward and pushing off with both legs, trying to get some forward momentum.

Just as you do this, a noise comes from behind you, a soft _click_ , and then the distinctive creak of the door to the balcony opening.

“Darling, did you lock yourself out again? You really must be more mindful with these doors, you silly little bird, I won’t always be here to—” 

You don’t catch the rest of what Alastor says because you are _already_ falling, and you really don’t have time to worry about the fact that, had you waited a single second longer, he might have just let you inside without the ridiculous effort of _jumping from the third floor_.

In fact you don’t have time for much of anything except a single moment of crystal clear certainty that you have _no idea_ how to land this jump and that you were a complete idiot for attempting this at all. Mostly, though, you are just falling, strangely slow, wings tensed in useless anticipation. You hadn’t realized how _long_ a fall without wings feels, how much time it takes, without the certainty of landing on your feet, to make it to the ground. You feel like you are falling forever, **falling** right back down to hell, tethered by gravity you can no longer escape, plummeting like a useless stone through the air.

And then, suddenly, you aren’t falling anymore.

This is especially strange because, instead of ploughing into the ground like you had expected, getting a mouthful of dirt, knocking the wind out of you, you are simply, not falling. Not anything.

You wonder if perhaps you concussed yourself, and are just now waking up.

You wonder if maybe you had somehow been so absurdly unlucky as to have died in that pathetically short fall, and this is just what death feels like. _Not falling_.

Then you become aware of a pressure, just above your hips, pushing the stiff edge of your corset awkwardly into your ribs. It doesn’t hurt, really, but you aren’t ruling out the possibility of serious injury, if only because that is the kind of day you’re having.

Furrowing your brow, you open one eye, then the other, and stare down at yourself, hoping that you aren’t impaled on something—or worse. 

You aren’t.

What you are, is confused. 

Around your waist are wrapped a pair of dark hands, holding you off the ground. Blinking, you follow the hands to a pair of crimson sleeves, to a pinstriped red suit-jacket, a long gray neck, and a sharp, taught yellow smile.

_Alastor?_

Alastor is holding you up at arms-length, like he snatched you right out of the air. The position seems awkward, you can’t imagine that it’s easy to hold a person aloft like that, but Alastor doesn’t seem to be struggling. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything but staring at you with wide red eyes, holding very still. You aren’t even sure if he’s breathing.

You blink at him.

 _I stopped falling,_ you think, waiting for your brain to catch up with the rest of you.

It doesn’t take long.

 _Alastor caught me?_ You realize with a start, and suddenly, Alastor’s hands are burning a hole through your blouse. He was on the balcony, at the door, but, he must have moved, snapped himself onto the ground or something.

It’s still windy, and you watch as the breeze moves his bangs, revealing that small red x on his forehead, the one you saw the day he first appeared. You feel suddenly very, very uncomfortable.

“Um, Alastor?” you ask, desperate to break the silence, or, at least, get Alastor to blink. Then, like an electric shock, his hands are gone and you fall the rest of the way to the ground, landing with a gasp in the short red lawn. Alastor bursts into animation, fixing the lapels on his jacket with one hand and gesturing emphatically with the other.

“Really now darling you’re just too much. I know I called you a bird but dear that’s just an expression, it doesn’t mean you can fly.” He laughs dramatically, then leans down to pat you between the horns as you lever yourself up from the grass. “Honestly, what _would_ you do without me, why, if I hadn’t caught you, you would have shattered into a million tiny pieces, and poor Charlie would be hosing you off the walls for weeks.”

“I would have been fine,” you mutter, dusting yourself off angrily. You feel… you can’t exactly tell what you feel. For a moment there you had been really terribly anxious, like a thousand nuzzling insects had taken up residence under your skin, but that feeling was almost immediately eclipsed by all encompassing _annoyance_ at Alastor. _I can’t believe he dropped me again_ , you think, feeling scandalized. You shake the red grass off of your pants with one hand, scowling.

Another, smaller part of you, one you don’t bother paying much attention to, thinks something else. _I can’t believe he caught me_.

Alastor laughs derisively at you, shaking his head and waving you off like an annoying fly, obviously unconcerned with the fact that he _dropped you_ , _again_. _What does that make, three times now?_

“Absolutely not darling, not with that terrible form, I can just picture it now, your blood painting the lawn. And believe me sweetheart, I do enjoy watching a good fall to the death every now and then, but you’re such a tiny thing it would hardly make much of a splash,” Alastor seems positively tickled by the image of you dead on the lawn, which strikes you as more obnoxious than genuinely disturbing. Frowning, you blow your hair out of your face and turn away from his theatrics, marching back towards the front door.

Alastor, undeterred, appears in front of you waving a chastising finger in your face.

“Now now little bird, where are your manners?” He asks you leaning down into your personal space. You seriously consider walking around him, but decide there is really no point, seeing as he can teleport.

“What?” you ask, supremely unamused by his continued antics. _If he thinks I’m going to thank him for catching and then dropping me he’s dead wrong_ , you think, ignoring that increasingly tiny part of you that keeps circling back to the fact that he _caught_ you in the first place. Alastor is so perfectly annoying, he makes it easy to ignore.

“My dear, I do believe I just rescued you, dramatically I might add. Don’t you think you owe me?” You feel the static creep up on you momentarily, and you feel the ghost of that sharp green light you had seen when Alastor first tried to strike a deal with Charlie, and you take a half step back. “A thank you at least, no?” You can’t help it, you get the chills.

The absolute _last_ thing you want to do is _owe_ Alastor, perhaps second only to having him _think_ you owe him. That kind of leverage, to this entitled child, would be a nightmare. And something about the way he says it, just the word “owe,” it feels like an epitaph, like a death sentence.

You decide to switch tactics. You say a momentary, mental goodbye to your continued failed efforts to be anything other than entertaining to this menace, and try something else. 

“Alastor, when you opened the door to the balcony, did you expect to see me jumping off?” You ask, mustering your sweetest most conciliatory tone. You even bat your eyelashes, for good measure.

“Not in the slightest! Imagine my shock at seeing my darling little cartographer plunging to her second death, the humanity! I hardly could have expected such a display,” Alastor clutches his chest dramatically. You press on.

“So then, wouldn’t you consider that particular turn of events to be _exciting_?” You use one of Alastor’s words, “ _Interesting_ even?”

Alastor blinks at you, and then grins widely, his microphone appearing in one hand.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing darling, very clever.” He waves a hand and a scattered applause comes from an invisible audience, “yes I suppose I would call this little drama _interesting_ , if nothing else.” Alastor pauses for you, holding out his microphone expectantly. You raise an eyebrow at him, and lean forward dubiously to speak into the thing, feeling a little silly but not wanting to lose your momentum.

“Then, if you were _entertained_ , I think we are even.” You finish, as applause erupts from everywhere and nowhere.

Alastor brings the microphone back to himself and gestures dramatically around the empty side yard.

“There it is folks, bargaining with the deal maker himself, what a darling little spitfire she is, isn’t she?” The crowd cheers, and then, without warning, the microphone is gone and Alastor is back to patting your head condescendingly, “You never cease to entertain sweetheart, why every moment is a surprise with you around.”

You move to swat Alastor’s hand away, when a chiming noise distracts him. He pulls a small golden pocket watch out of the front of his suit, and looks at it in surprise.

“Noon already? Well darling, as much as I would love to stay and chat I’m afraid I have to start lunch. I expect to see you there, I’m making muffuletta and I am certain you will love them, and really now, try not to get yourself into any trouble while I’m away.” There is a brief laugh track, as Alastor puts the watch back in his pocket, and then, with a smug grin, he is gone, and you’re left standing in the yard with the echoing laughter, dusty and annoyed and, worst of all, suddenly hungry.

You glance up at the balcony, and then across the lawn. You _probably_ wouldn’t have been injured, not badly at least. At most you might have had a few scrapes. _Just a few scrapes._

 _I could have drawn blood_ , you realize with a start.

You blink at the short grass, blood red already, as if in anticipation.

 _I probably wouldn’t have been badly hurt_.

 _But I might have been_.

And, with Alastor and his distractingly obnoxious presence gone, that little part of your head speaks up again, and you find that you can’t quite shake it.

 _I can’t believe he caught me_.

You take a long, hard look at the ground, at the indent where Alastor dropped you, and furrow your brow.

Eventually, you head back inside.

You are hungry after all, and while you have no idea what a _muffuletta_ is, you can only assume that it’s going to be delicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I have to say about this chapter is: this is how it really went down, in my heart.  
>  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XINddkzfTzM
> 
> ON TO MORE IMPORTANT BUSINESS: FANART   
> I seriously can’t even say just how amazing it is that people are sending me fanart of this series, like, to think anyone would take time out of their day to do artwork of something I wrote, its surreal. All I can say is thank you ALL for your continued support and interest, this fic has become a real source of joy for me these past few months, and reading your comments and seeing your fanart is heartwarming <3 I love you all.   
> And so, a huge and amazing thank you to Venez_ao on Instagram with this awesome sketch of our angel falling into Hell:  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ4NbecD7XS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link  
> be sure to check it out and send some love their way  
> And of course, thank you to littlewashu45 for your many lovely comments, and for this awesome rendition of our angel looking totally badass:  
> Here is the Insta Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKSP2qzgl-m/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link  
> And DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/littlewashu45/art/Finished-Art-for-my-Friend-s-OC-from-Hazbin-Hotel-867685194  
> Check it out on whatever platform works for you ^_^ 
> 
> Seriously, I can’t thank venez_ao and littlewashu45 enough for their fanart, and everyone else who has created fanart, posted comments, bookmarked, given Kudos, or clicked on/read this series, I never thought anyone would have any interest in this fic, and to see the level of support and positivity it has gotten never ceases to amaze me!   
> OK, OK, before I get too mushy, I’ll see you all in the next one, and be prepped for some fun Husk and Niffty interactions there! Stay safe everyone!


	44. Update (not a chapter)

Hi Guys! Unfortunately I've been feeling sick since Thursday (Not COVID, thankfully) so no chapters right now :( On the bright side I have the next two chapters written but not edited, so I will post those as soon as I can focus on something for more than 30 seconds without needing a nap lol.   
BUT in the interim I would love to share some more spectacular fanart I have received for this series! This one is done by the amazing Lolavatarwolfs here on Ao3, or evangebree on Tumbler who made this awesome piece with our angel and her Red Menace, as well as some absolutely fantastic sketches of some of the more memorable moments from the fic. (Alastor winking and asking "are you ALL RIGHT dear" makes me giggle every time)

The link to her work:   
https://evangebree.tumblr.com/post/641381751330111488/some-art-for-chrysiridiarhipheuss-fic-were-all

I really love this piece, and (once again because I never get tired of saying it) I am so incredibly honored and grateful to have people making art for my fic! Thank you to Lolavatarwolfs and to everyone else who has created fanart you guys are incredible, as well as to everyone who is still here through my weird upload schedule, random illnesses, and general fuckery. I love you guys! Stay safe out there <3  
-Chrys


	45. The Oldest Rule in the Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again with another chapter. In this chapter you have a few strange conversations.

Chapter 38: The Oldest Rule in the Book

* * *

You pause outside the main entrance to the lobby, frowning down at the doorhandle. The short walk around the building has done nothing to re-focus your thoughts, and the thought of walking into the lobby and chatting with Alastor is making you vaguely sick.

Maybe the jump from the roof shook up your insides more than you expected, _that’s probably it_.

As if on cue, your stomach gurgles petulantly, making you flinch. Feeling ridiculous, you slap your cheeks with both hands, trying to regain control of your situation.

 _So Alastor caught me_ , you rationalize, _probably on some freak impulse just like he does everything else, there’s no point in thinking too hard about it._ Honestly, you wonder if maybe he would just be jealous of the ground if it got to be the one to do you in, he seems like the type to be territorial about that sort of thing.

 _This is ridiculous_ , you make a concerted effort to reign your attention in and focus on something else. _What was I doing_ before _Alastor derailed my day?_

 _The map_ , right, the hotel was pranking you or punishing you or _something_. Or, at the very least, you were having a freak string of bad luck and had lost just enough of your fleeting sanity to begin to empathize with a _building_. _Does anyone else have to deal with this?_ Vaggie had mentioned that she too found the building “weird,” but “weird” and “sentient” are two entirely different thoughts. 

_I could ask,_ you consider.

You open the lobby door with purpose, clinging to your new thought and trying to ignore the chipper humming and buzzing static coming from the kitchen.

Frowning, you make your way across the lobby towards the couch, where a long pale leg dangling a single heel is draped over the armrest. Angel is sprawled on the couch in a tiny, sequined jean skirt and short top, scrolling absently on his phone. You lean over the chair back, looking down at the fluffy top of his head.

“Angel?” You ask, resting your chin on the wooden frame. Angel makes a noise that sounds vaguely annoyed, and continues to scroll, you decide that’s about as much invitation as you are going to get. “Do you think this hotel is…” you flounder. _Alive_ just seems idiotic out loud, so you settle with, “strange?”

Angel snorts and leans his head back to look up at you.

“Baby doll I live here rent free on the condition that I _be nice_ , fuck yes I think this place is batshit.” Angel barks a laugh, and you don’t miss Vaggie shooting a glare in your direction from across the lobby. You find Angel’s understanding of his living situation to be a little…flawed, but decide to press on anyway.

“No, I mean, the building itself.” Angel raises a thin eyebrow.

“This shithole? It’s way cleaner than the last place I was crashin’. I could smell the landlord through the fucking floors,” Angel scrunches his face in exaggerated disgust, “and don’t even get me started on the water pressure. Fuckin’ depressing! You know how hard it is to get clean after a night at the studio? You would not believe the shit I get in my hair.” Angel looks halfway to a rant about the poor condition of his last apartment, and you flail to regain his attention.

“You don’t get, um, lost, or feel like you’re being watched, anything?” You insist. Angel looks at you, and then gestures with one slender hand towards the unblinking eyes carved into the couch, and then at the wallpaper, the flower vases, and the picture frames, all of which are haphazardly covered in the same, not-quite-animate eyeballs.

“Besides that.”

“Look toots, I don’t go nowhere in this place but my room, this couch, and out the fuckin’ door. If I got lost doin’ that I’d be pretty thoroughly fucked, yeah?” Angel huffs and goes back to his phone, looking bored.

You sigh feeling defeated. _Maybe it’s just me?_ You really might be losing it, but if things continue how they have been, you aren’t sure you’ll survive past the next floor. You picture yourself walking endlessly in circles, right turn after right turn, Alastor’s grinning silhouette laughing at you from every shadow. You rest your head on your arms forlornly and consider calling this whole day a bust and taking a nap.

Angel looks up at you from under his speckled hair for a long moment, before setting his phone down on his stomach and sighing dramatically.

“Look, there was this one time—”

You bolt up immediately, leaning over the couch towards Angel.

“And I’m only sayin’ this cause you bein’ such a buzzkill, so cheer up and fuck off after, ‘kay babe?” Angel fluffs his hair in a way that seems to imply that this is requiring serious effort on his part, which is somewhat undermined by the fact that he is currently reclining on the couch. Either way, you nod eagerly.

“Well this one time, I get back to my room, right? And Nuggs is missing.” Angel glances across the room at Vaggie, and lowers his voice slightly, “So first I think the one-eyed harpy found him and snatched him, so I’m ready to go cut a bitch and get my baby back, but that’s when I notice the door.” Angel speaks with his hands, and even though you have trouble following his story, you find the performance engaging. “I was pretty toasted the night before, and I guess I fucked the door up slamming it or some shit, but it like wouldn’t close, ya know? So then I’m like, _holy fuck he must have got out and now_ _he’s lost somewhere all alone._ ” Angel looks affected, like he might tear up right now simply at the thought of Fat Nuggets being without him in the hotel. It’s sweet, although you think saying that to Angel might constitute a suicide attempt.

“So I go look for him, right? And he’s left these cute little prints all up the hallway, and I’m followin’ them, and, poor baby, he must have been so scared because those things went _everywhere_. I’m talkin’ up the stairs, down the stairs, fuckin’ everything but the ceiling. I’m lookin’ for what feels like all fuckin’ night, I’m all over this fuckin’ place, closets and rooms and shit, places ain’t no one been in years, when I finally hear him behind this big-ass glass door. So I go through, and there he is looking precious all curled up on a fuckin’ _lawn chair_ , talkin’ in his sleep, it’s the cutest goddamn thing. So I go up and get him an’ I’m tellin’ him not to scare me like that and shit and promising to make him a big snack and everything, like some chocolate chip cookies or something. He’s got a sweet tooth, you should see him eat cookies it’s precious—” Angel’s eyes are becoming misty.

“Angel.” You pull him back from explaining the details of Fat Nuggets’s diet.

Angel tosses his head imperiously, but does return to his story, “Anyways, so like, I’m holdin’ him, and that’s when I notice where we are. It’s a pool. Like a big-ass indoor pool, with a fuckin skylight and a waterfall and shit, the whole shebang. And the pool is fucked, but there’s a sauna that’s pretty sweet, and I’m like _fuck I gotta come back here after work sometime_. But I got Nuggs, and he’s fussing since I woke him up, so I go back to my room, _bla bla bla_. Next day, I’m back from work and I could fuckin’ _use_ some me-time, so me and Nuggs go for a little spa day, we get back to where I swear the place was, and fuck me backwards if it ain’t there. And I’m like looking everwhere, fuckin under chairs and shit, tryin’a find it, but that bitch is AWOL. It’s like, when I wasn’t losing my shit looking for Nuggs, the pool couldn’t be fucked to show up.” Angel shrugs, and lets out a wistful sigh “Fuckin’ shame.” 

You blink, thinking that this is, hands down, the most Angel has ever told you about himself, even if it is an arbitrary story about a pool. 

_But at least I know it’s not just me_ , it feels oddly vindicating to know Angel can’t navigate either, since even Vaggie, who knows the hotel _can_ be strange, doesn’t seem to have trouble. 

“Aye, earth to feathers. You good?” Angel taps your forehead with one sparkling nail, and you blink owlishly. “Is that the kinda shit you were lookin’ for, or does it need to be more touchy-feely? Ya know doll if this big ‘ol hotel is too scary for you, you can always come to my room and cuddle.” Angel grabs a piece of your white-blond hair between two fingers and twirls it with a wink. You feel your face flame and pull away from Angel, who cackles and stretches on the couch like a house cat.

“Um, yes, that’s what I was, um, asking about,” you stammer frantically flattening your hair. Angel just laughs over you.

“Ah, never change babe, cause that shit never gets old.” You grimace and back up stiffly from the couch, deciding to find someone less…aggressive to talk to.

“Oh, hey, feathers.” Angel’s manicured hand appears over the couch waving you back. You take a tentative half step back towards the couch, but pause out of groping reach. Angel scoffs. “If you do find that pool, let me know, we can have a girls day.”

“Um, okay, sure.” You say. _There’s that phrase again, girls day_ , you think, _that’s twice I’ve agreed to that_. You hope it’s not some kind of satanic ritual or custom, something weird and violent that you haven’t yet been indoctrinated into.

Angel pokes his head above the couch and blows you a kiss, which almost makes you laugh, in spite of yourself. You know that Angel likely has engaged in his fair-share of hellish violence, but something about him is so effortlessly playful, you almost can’t picture it, even though you’ve _seen_ some of Angel’s violence yourself.

 _Demons are funny like that_ , you muse. In spite of being damned for sins, no one—aside from a particular Red Menace—have seemed very simple. Husk drinks, Angel is something of a concerning drug addict, and Vaggie is prone to pulling knives on people, but all of them are weirdly…harmless. _Angel has a pet for heaven’s sake_.

Sometimes, staring down the barrel of the gun that is Alastor, things really do seem hellish, but more often than not you find that you can nearly forget where you are.

Part of you is calling that “letting your guard down,” but the rest of you just finds it easy. Weirdly easy.

Avoiding Angel and his grabby hands, you wander over towards the bar. Husk is seated at a nearby table, shuffling a deck of cards, occasionally lifting his arms or feet to let Niffty clean around him. 

“May I sit?” you ask Husk, who seems to find the question funny.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass” he says with a gravelly chuckle, halving the deck expertly. You have begun to notice that when it comes to Husk, his tone is vastly more important than his words, which seem to be profane by wrote and without any apparent connection to his actual meaning. He sounds friendly now, so you take it as safe and scoot into the nearby armchair. You watch Husk silently for a moment, trying to track the subtle movements of his lithe hands as he cuts and shuffles the cards. He fans them out once, then twice, then deals them onto the table in some order, sweeps them up with his hand, and repeats the motion.

“What are you doing?” you ask, watching the cards hit the table and then get swept back up and shuffled again, with no obvious purpose.

“Practicing.” Husk says simply. You wait, but he doesn’t seem inclined to add more, so you open your mouth to ask, but he holds up pale claw to silence you, and says “watch.”

You blink, then close your mouth and do as he says, watching him deal out the cards in order, sweep them up, shuffle them, and then deal them again in the same order.

 _Wait_. You watch him repeat the process and slowly realize what he is doing. He’s dealing out the cards in order, _the same order_ , every time. He mixes them up, then deals them from a deck facing _down_. He can’t even see the cards as he does it, but still the order is the same. 

You assume there is some trick to it, and watch Husk’s hands intently for a moment as they zip through the cards, tossing them out and sweeping them up almost carelessly. Husker laughs once at your laser focus, and flips the cards over when he shuffles, so you can see the numbers. You realize, almost immediately, that he isn’t _actually_ shuffling the cards, just moving them around in chunks before putting them all back where they belong, and dealing them out one-by-one.

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles up when you figure it out. It’s like finally getting the hang of a new weapon or fighting move, it clicks into place and suddenly the whole thing is obvious. Husk seems to find your interest amusing.

“That ain’t even a real trick kid.” Husk snorts, shuffling but _not_ shuffling the deck again.

“That was an _amazing_ trick,” you balk, “I had no idea until you flipped the cards over!” You watch him shuffle, picking out the fine movements of his claws, separating the cards into groups, keeping everything in order.

“Show off” Niffty’s mutter comes from your left, and you see Husk crack a wry smile.

“You’re too fuckin’ easy to impress, this shit’s basic.” He shrugs, then deals the cards out with one hand as he takes a swig from an ever-present bottle.

“Can I try?” you ask, glancing between the cards and Husk. Now that you know the trick you can’t help but want to master it, but Husk looks at you like you’ve just sprouted wings, which, you suppose, you already have, not that Husk knows that.

“You want to learn how to stack a deck?” Husk asks, incredulous. You aren’t sure what “stack a deck” means, but Husk’s surprise throws you a bit.

“I’m sorry, it’s okay if you don’t want me to,” You hold up your hands in a placating gesture, and Husk raises an eyebrow at you.

“No, knock yourself out.” He pushes the cards over to you, and then slouches onto one elbow. You eye them for a second, then attempt to replicate Husk’s nonchalant way of sweeping them up from the table.

The cards are more unwieldy than you expected, and you do manage to fling several off the edge of the table in the process.

“More wrist,” He says, catching the falling cards and replacing them on the table. You try to use your wrist, and loose slightly fewer cards that time. You keep trying to copy Husk’s trick, separating the cards into chunks and reordering them while Husk occasionally gives you direction. Niffty even drifts towards the table to watch you with interest, tucking a small pink towel into the pocket of her skirt.

Handling the cards is strangely soothing, even as you focus all of your attention on recreating the trick, you find that most of your mind can wander. You think about what Angel said, about how the pool room seemed to disappear once he was looking for it specifically. That sounds different from the third floor, where things only seem to disappear when you _stop_ looking for them, vanishing whenever your mind wanders even an inch, but it does resemble something like a prank. If the hotel were, _I can’t believe I’m even considering this_ , alive somehow, it might make sense that, if it wanted to joke with you or Angel, it might open a door to a balcony or hide a pool.

At the very least, Angel wasn’t able to get to the same place twice, and today you couldn’t, for the life of you, find one of the rooms you would _swear_ was on the floor yesterday. Maybe the building just…moves? Changes? Maybe it’s not intentional but accidental. _What am I even asking?_

You watch your hands clumsily section and shuffle the cards, the deal them out, nearly in order but with one obvious chunk mixed up. Husk snorts and switches the two sections with a deft claw. You look up at him.

“Husk, can I ask you a stupid question?” You say, as you gather the cards back into your hand.

“Sit the deck lower in your palm,” Husk says, swirling his dwindling supply of liquor in its bottle, “and if I say fuck no would you listen?”

You pause and look at him, brow furrowed.

“Of course I would.” _Does he really think I would just ignore him if he said no?_ Husk tilts his head slightly and gives you a look that you can’t quite decipher. 

“No, that’s not what I…fuck it whatever, shoot.” He makes a motion with his hand that you take to mean “go ahead,” and polishes off the rest of his bottle in three loud gulps.

“Do you think that…I mean is it possible that the hotel is…” you shrug and wave the card in your hand affectedly. Husk’s eyebrow raises slowly in mild interest, like he is watching an unfolding car accident, “Is alive?”

Husk looks at you, and then around at the lobby, taking in the almost-decorative eyes pockmarking every surface. Niffty, still drifting nearby, polishes over one of the unblinking orbs on a vase as the pupil follows the movement. You half expect Husk to laugh, but instead he just shrugs, the movement making his drooping wings ruffle in a way you find vaguely nostalgic.

“Dunno, maybe.” He says.

You pause in your clumsy shuffling and stare at him. _Maybe?_ You think you may actually do a double take, and realize suddenly that you had been very much hoping that Husk would have dispelled your fears as impossible. _That_ would have made you feel better. “ _Maybe”_ makes you feel… _what does he mean by “maybe”?_

“I…really?” Is all you manage to say

Husk shrugs again and rubs the back of one hand along his face in a nonchalant and very cat-like gesture.

“Yeah, I mean, why not? And with all the fuckin’ eyes everywhere, creepy as shit, could be. Keep shuffling.” He gestures towards your hands, and you start mechanically shuffling again before stopping.

“Wait, are you saying a _building_ can be _alive_?” You shake your head, trying to get this straight.

“Kid you’re the one who asked—” Husk pauses, then squints at you for a long moment. “How long you been down here?” He asks.

“Husker!” Niffty balks, peeking out from behind the vase she was working on, “rude!”

Husk flicks his tail dismissively in her direction, still looking at you. _I didn’t realize asking about death was taboo_ , you think, and take a mental note.

“It’s ok Niffty, I don’t mind,” You smile at the smaller demon, who goes bright pink and ducks back behind the vase with a squeak. “I fell a little while before the last extermination.” You deliberately stay vague, although you have the days all carefully numbered in your head.

“Wait, really?” Niffty’s face pokes back around the vase, her surprise overriding her instinct to run for cover whenever she sees you.

Husk whistles low and sits back to look at you.

“That explains why you’re so fucking jumpy, shit kid, you’re a goddamn greenhorn” Husk rolls his shoulder and grimaces, “The way you about tore my fuckin’ arm off I thought you’d been here a while, shit.”

You blanch at Husks apparent pain and make a move to inspect his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, are you sure I didn’t hurt you, I—”

“I said I’m fine, goddamn girl.” Husk bats your hands away.

“You’re like, a little kid or something” Niffty appears to be struggling with some kind of internal crisis.

“Niffty,” You say, feeling a bit like the walls of this conversation are crumbling around you, “I’m very certain that I’m older than you.” Niffty herself can’t be more than three decades old, and based on her speech and dress, couldn’t be dead more than 70 years. Even with the time passed in Hell, you would still be nearly a century her senior.

Niffty looks at you, and then down at herself, apparently wrestling with the concept. You turn back to Husk, hoping for some sanity. Husk is inspecting you with trademark blank grumpiness, but you can’t help but feel a little too _seen_ by his dour stare. _I should have lied._ You lament, not for the first, and probably not the last, time.

“Husk, what does it matter how long I’ve been down here?” You ask, hoping to steer him back on course.

“Right,” Husk gestures around the hotel lazily, “I guess you don’t know how things work around here, this is hell, shit is weird, that’s basically it. Plus this place belongs to Lucifer, it’s probably fucked _out_ of hell and back.”

“’Fucked’ being, alive?” you ask, the profanity feeling vaguely foreign on your tongue.

“Who knows,” Husk pulls one wing forward and fixes his feathers absently, “You work for a guy like that asshole long enough,” Husk nods towards the kitchen from which distorted music is still drifting lazily, “You see all kind of shit alive when it shouldn’t be, and dead in more ways than you can imagine. Just looking at that fucker’s microphone. Bullshit gives me a migraine. You shouldn’t think about it too much.” Husk fluffs his coverlet feathers and lets his wing droop back behind him lazily.

 _That’s it?_ _Buildings can be animate and Husker is OK with that?_ _He just doesn’t think about it?_ You are finding this hard to conceptualize, and Husk, apparently seeing your confusion written all over your face, picks up the deck of cards, abandoned on the table, and starts shuffling them again.

“Seriously, kid, who gives a fuck if the hotel is alive or dead or fuck all in-between. It doesn’t matter.” Husk shuffles the cards, bridges them, and then deals them out, still in order and you blink down at the deck as he dishes it out into piles and sweeps it up.

 _Does it matter?_ You feel for a moment, like you might be able to see things from Husk’s perspective, and just let it go, not worry about what the hotel _is_ , or _isn’t_. 

This feeling lasts about half a second before you decide that _no_ , it absolutely _does_ matter, and you can’t just walk around a hotel ignoring the fact that it might trap you on a balcony or _eat you_.

“It’s like, vampire rules, right?” Niffty pops back into the conversation, and when you turn to her you find her standing _much_ closer to you than she has since the first day she arrived, still below your eye level even sitting, looking up at you like she just asked you for a huge favor. Only then do you think about what she said and realize that you have no idea what she is referring to.

“Vampire…rules?” you parrot, feeling like a fish swimming in maple syrup.

“Yeah like, when a vampire looks 12 but she was turned into a vampire like 300 years ago, so she’s really 312, so it’s fine.” Niffty flutters her hands when she talks, a nervous gesture that does nothing to convey to you what she means.

“Um?” you make a confused noise.

“Like Vampire Knight. Or Anne Rice, Mimzy loves her stuff.” Niffty insists, nodding at you. You get the impression that she wants a response from you, so you nod and smile as best you can, hoping that response makes sense, or at the very least, isn’t wildly inappropriate.

“Right?!” Niffty chirps, and rises on her toes, still not quite as tall as you are in your chair, “I knew you would get it, its vampire rules, its fine. _Phew_!” She snaps the cloth out of her skirt pocket and dabs at her forehead, then seems to realize her proximity to you, and flushes.

“Um, anyways, bye.” She stuffs the cloth back into her skirt and dashes for the stairs like a neon comet, leaving a little puff of air in her wake.

You blink for several seconds, running through the interaction, and finally concluding that, at least, the nod didn’t seem to be the _wrong_ answer. _I think_.

“What was that about?” You say to Husk, watching Niffty disappear up the stairs.

“Fuck if I know, I don’t understand half the shit she says” Husker shrugs and take a long pull from a bottle he appears to have materialized in one hand.

“I think I understand the feeling.” After a moment, you gesture towards the cards in Husk’s free hand, “Can you teach me out to shuffle them in a bridge like that?”

“A riffle shuffle? Sure.” Husk grunts, take another large swig, and then taps the cards to the table and begins to demonstrate.

The hotel is like the cards, Niffty too, you think. Mysterious until you learn the trick, the rules, then it makes sense.

You hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I’m feeling much better, and the break was actually really nice, I’m feeling super hyped for the next few chapters, as one of my favorite and long-planned scenes is coming up really soon! A big thank you to everyone who posted well-wishes on the last update! I didn’t respond to most of them while I was feeling bad, but I did read them all and I appreciate you guys <3   
> Also, if you didn’t quite catch Niffty’s train of thought, she feels uncomfortable when she realizes you are so new to hell, because she has a crush on you, but rationalizes it as “vampire rules” which are, as she says, if someone gets turned into a vampire as a kid but spends a long time at that age( and vice versa), then it’s not weird (And, I mean, it’s still weird, but I watch a lot of anime too Niffty, sometimes you just have to accept that the love interest looks like a 12 year old and that’s just how it’s gonna be). Basically she’s saying “we’ll you’re a child in hell years but an adult in earth years so it’s fine,” Which is a debate she has only because I have heard that same debate in the anime community FOREVER and Niffty is canonically an anime fan? I think? Anne Rice, for reference, writes a long running series of vampire novels in which a main character is forever stuck as a child, despite being mentally and emotionally very old.   
> Also, has anyone else noticed that Husk is the only character that is NAKED? I basically JUST noticed that while writing this chapter and now I can’t UNSEE the fact that he is running around naked while EVERYONE ELSE is clothed. Is that weird or is it just me? Just me? Ok.   
> Next Chapter is DONE and will be up Monday. I am working on a Valentine’s day short, but right now I’m not super happy with it, so I may scrap that and incorporate the bit that I do like into the main story at a later date, but just in case, keep your eyes out for that.   
> Oh, and for those of you who haven’t checked out the Instagram associated with this fic, I posted another piece of concept art for the MC, featuring her St. Peter’s cross, so feel free to check that out if that interests you. There are also pictures of my new baby snake, Alastor, who is very handsome and sassy.   
> OK, that’s all for me for now folks, thank you all for your patience and support :’) You all are awesome!


	46. Quadrille

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alastor has a rough day, and you have a sandwich.

Chapter 39: Quadrille

* * *

Husk doesn’t seem to mind indulging your interest in cards, and after his initial confusion, you find that he is actually a patient teacher. He has a knack for letting you figure out the trick rather than explaining it to you, which for a visual learner like yourself has you quickly handling he cards with confidence.

You have always been a quick learner but Husk’s quiet, subtle praise—a smirk here, an occasional word there—are much more than you ever received from your angelic teachers. Heaven was a heavily rank-based society, and so successes were greeted with formal awards and acknowledgements, but rarely personal praise. Husk’s tacit approval is familiar and yet totally new, and before you know it you have drug your chair over to his side of the table, and look up at him after every successful trick, waiting for his approving nod.

It’s a bit silly, you feel almost childish, but Husk doesn’t seem bothered; rather, he seems to enjoy your quick progress. If anything, your continued interest seems like a pleasant surprise to him, rather than an annoyance.

“Fraternizing, are we?”

Alastor’s voice, sounding above your head, makes you jump, scattering cards across the table and into the lap of a very exasperated-looking Husker. He was halfway through explaining the various cards to you, seeing as, while you had seen cards played before, you had never really thought to pay attention to the rules. Husk had been scandalized, or at least, as close to scandalized as the grumpy cat could get.

You look up, to see Alastor looming between you and Husk, smiling sharply. The overall effect is somewhat diminished by the frilly apron he is wearing—apparently still using the one in the kitchen, instead of say, bringing his own—but not by much. Then again, only Alastor would have the sheer rabid aura to still manage to make you sweat even in the face of a pastel pink apron with a strawberry embroidered on the front. If you think about it, the frilly lace collar is almost _more_ horrifying for the sheer disconnect between it and Alastor’s permanently hungry smile. 

_What was he saying?_ You realize your mind has completely wandered.

“I’m sorry?” you say, unable to tear your eyes away from the large strawberry adorning Alastor’s narrow chest.

Alastor stiffens almost imperceptibly, then leans down, pushing himself in between you and Husk to rest one arm on the card table. You catch sight of Husker rolling his eyes before Alastor’s torso fills your field of vision, crowding your personal space uncomfortably.

“Darling, honestly, how many times _must_ I tell you to pay attention.” Alastor taps the underside of your chin with one nail, making your head flinch back and forcing you to look at him. “I was merely remarking on the fact that you and Husker here appear to be getting along swimmingly.”

_He does hate being ignored_ , you remember, but you can’t help but glance down at his hands. The way his dark gloves meld into his arms had seemed grotesque from across the room the last time you had seen them, but up close the effect is truly off-putting. The gloves are like some kind of infection, a fungus growing up his arms and into his skin, tracing gnarled black veins up towards his pale, corpse-like elbow. On top of that, Alastor is rather thin, small-framed despite his towering height, all edges unlike Angel, who, while slightly taller, is composed mostly of fluff and curves. The sharp angle of his elbow, and the taught chords of his forearm muscles border on emaciated, like his demon form is physically drained of something vital, and infected instead with this creeping dark mass.

_It looks like my wings_. The thought bursts on you unbidden, like a soap bubble, popping in your brain. Suddenly, illogically, you can picture Alastor through the same lens you see your own twisted body. Broken, deformed, burned and mutilated by a fall into hell, the physical evidence of your death sentence carved into cold, unyielding flesh.

And it makes you empathize with a sudden, unwelcome pang of comradery. You resist the urge to get up and walk away, and try to remind yourself that Alastor is the absolute _last_ creature in hell that needs or wants pity. And, unlike your wings, his hands are anything but pitiful. _At least they work,_ you think bitterly, which brings you back to a more familiar place of general resentment towards the Radio Demon 

Alastor is looking at you, and you can only assume that the whole ridiculous tortured drama that just played out in your head also played out on your face because he looks condescendingly bemused by your apparent internal turmoil. 

“For fucks sake, can ya get off the goddamn table,” Husker’s throaty growl pulls Alastor’s attention, gratefully, away from you, “And, while you’re at it, fuck off.”

“Ah, Husker, how your sweet words affect me,” Alastor feigns a swoon, while still managing to occupy most of the usable table space with one arm, “I remember when we used to play cards like this, once upon a time.” Alastor plucks a card of the table, and ace, which Husk had been teaching you about just before this menace had dropped into your lesson, and twirls it carelessly between two fingers. You have to move your chair back a few inches to avoid the sharp edge of the card.

“Oh, no fuck face. You are not talking me into a fuckin’ poker game,” Husk leans deliberately past Alastor to look at you over the taller man’s arm, “Don’t play shit with this guy, he’s the worst fuckin’ loser in hell. Motherfucker about took my hand off for two fuckin dollars.”

Alastor laughs in a way that can only be described as sadistic, and taps Husk on the nose with one finger, making the cat demon flinch and bare his sharp teeth.

“Don’t be so dramatic Husker, I would have put it back afterwards.” Alastor straightens with a chuckle, and walks around Husk with his signature predatory air. Husk stiffens, and looks like he has half a mind to bolt, before thinking better of it and slouching with a resigned sigh. Alastor stops on the far side of Husk, facing you.

“You see, darling,” Alastor is speaking to you now, as he drapes an arm over Husk’s unwilling shoulders, “Husker here is a valued employee, my partner in crime, my _lagniappe_. I am oh so invested in his wellbeing.”

Your feather’s prickle, and you feel your pupils dilate as Alastor’s static washes over you like icy fog. His words are benign, _nice_ even; the sentiment is sweet but the intention, the _threat,_ is obvious. You aren’t sure what on God’s green earth Alastor is _threatening_ , but you know the scent of an animal marking his territory, and Alastor couldn’t have given off a clearer signal of ownership if he had has “Property of the Radio Demon” tattooed on Husk’s forehead.

“And, Darling, don’t you have a rather large task to be working on?” Alastor adds, while Husk tries unsuccessfully to sneak out from under his grip, “Can you really _afford_ to be playing games all day.”

The tacit threat is still there, but you can’t help but bristle at this comment. You _literally_ just jumped from the third floor after that particular _task_ had you trapped on a balcony, how dare he imply that you aren’t putting in effort. And besides, he’s no Michael, and he’s no God, you don’t owe him every second of your time.

Part of you, a very small, very angelic part, says that _maybe_ he does, _maybe_ you are wasting time, _maybe_ you should stay focused, something you could never quite manage while on earth.

But, no, _no_ , Alastor _doesn’t_ own your time.

And then, as quick as it came, the static is gone and Alastor is straightening. Husk appears more annoyed than anything else, pushing off Alastor’s lingering hand like an annoying insect. Alastor claps his hands once, and rubs them together, effectively scattering your train of thought.

“Anyways, lunch is served, and you two can’t well sit here all day lollygagging, there’s work to be done!” Alastor fixes you with a momentary glance that makes the fine feathers at the nape of your neck puff out, and then struts off towards the table with a flourish.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding and drop your shoulders, glancing at Husk in exhausted confusion.

Husk looks vaguely embarrassed, like Alastor is a particularly distasteful fact of his life he often has to apologize for. You feel bad for him, honestly.

“Don’t worry about him, he pulled that same fucking speech when Niffty first started. You should have seen the fuckin horror-show he laid on Niffty’s ex, first time he met ‘im. Fucker is…” Husk shrugs in a way that conveys something both big and immensely annoying.

“Territorial?” You offer, feeling vaguely shell-shocked.

“That, or fucking nuts, whichever you prefer.” Husk sweeps the cards, scattered chaotically across the table into a pile.

You lean down and collect some of the lost cards off the floor. You aren’t completely clear on what that was, exactly, or how you’re playing cards with Husk could be perceived as anything even close to a threat warranting a territorial display.

And as much as you _don’t_ want to think about it, Alastor _did_ help you not an hour ago. And now here he is drawing another arbitrary line and warning you not to cross. You feel like you will never get a read on Alastor when just trying is giving you emotional whiplash. Maybe you should take a page from Husker’s book and write him off as “fucking nuts” and leave it at that.

_And who is he to imply that I’m not a hard worker?_ You fluff up your feathers indignantly, and set the remaining cards back on the table. You hadn’t even wanted this absurd job to begin with, but you think, personally, that you are doing an excellent job given your circumstances.

_How is it that Alastor always seems to know where to needle me?_ You wonder vaguely.

“He’s an asshole,” Husk states, as if reading your mind, “don’t waste your time thinking about it, fucker isn’t worth it and you’ll give yourself a headache.”

You smile vaguely, knowing Husk is probably right, in spite of yourself.

“Darling!” Alastor’s voice drifts over from the dinner table as Husk slouches off towards the bar for his lunchtime drink, “Lunch is served, let’s see some pep in your step!”

You rub the base of one horn in exasperation, even as your stomach growls traitorously. _Just one day,_ you lament internally, _just one normal day is all I’m asking for_.

And, of course, Alastor—you would damn him if he weren’t already damned—has outdone himself. It turns out, a _muffuletta_ is a sandwich, which Alastor has organized into a sort of buffet, with bread at one end and toppings stretching down the table’s length. You are approaching one end of the spread, practically drooling and trying to decide if putting _everything_ on one sandwich is reasonable, when Angel’s shrill voice jars your already aching head away from food.

“Holy _shit_!”

You turn, not without difficulty, towards Angel who is sitting up, his legs still draped over the armrest of the couch, and gaping at Alastor.

Alastor, notably, is still wearing his apron, the silly pink thing tied over a white-button down and black suspenders, lacking his usual tailed jacket. You have only seen Alastor in the apron one other time, and when he had turned around then you had sworn you had seen something entirely _unexpected_ at Alastor’s back.

“You have a _fucking tail_ ” Angel practically squeals. Shooting up from the couch and darting over towards Alastor who, you would say, if you didn’t know better, is smiling with something approaching nervousness.

You lean to one side, craning your neck to see behind Alastor, who has spun to keep his back away from Angel. And there, at Alastor’s belt line, poking through a tailored spot in his slacks, is a fluffy, twitching, red tail, the exact color of his equally fluffy ears. The first time you had seen it the idea had been so ridiculous you had discounted it outright, but now, here it is again, in all of its glory

You cover your mouth with your hands to stifle a gasp that you would absolutely _not_ describe as delighted because the tail is most certainly _not_ adorable.

You expect that most people, 99.99% of hell, anyone with even a fragment of self-preservation instinct, would not point out such a distinctly un-intimidating feature on the Radio Demon. Such things, you imagine, are probably a bit of a sore spot, like someone pointing out your height. 

Angel, apparently, either lacks self-preservation, or lacks fear. Either way, he scrambles up to Alastor, darting around him and leaning over to inspect the tail in question. Alastor, on instinct, spins away from Angel, who merely follows the motion, chasing the other man’s tail like a severely confused dog.

After a moment of this comedy of errors, Alastor materialized his microphone with a wave of his hand and plants the blunt end against Angel’s fluffy head, pushing him back to an acceptable distance and grimacing.

“Yes, I have a tail, would you kindly _not_ invade my personal space to look at it, thank you.” Alastor’s tone is painfully polite, but the threat is clear to everyone in the room. Everyone except Angel, who attempts to duck the microphone and go for the tail again.

“Fuck that! Bitch do you _know_ how much I would kill for a tail. That shit is _so_ in, my customers would go wild for that thing, do you know how many furries there are in hell?” Angel lunges again, reaching for Alastor with his lower set of hands, while the upper set pluck the large bow off the collar of his shirt and what appears to be a pin from his immaculately messy hairstyle. Angel fashions the two into an impromptu accessory, “just let me see it for a sec.” Angel reaches for Alastor, who flips his microphone and uses the stem to block angel’s arms.

“Certainly not!” Alastor balks, making a concerted effort to fend of Angel without actually _touching_ him. His tail, apparently equally indignant, fluffs up and flicks in annoyance. You are suddenly gripped with a very strong and very sudden urge to _pet_ Alastor’s tail. You don’t have much experience with animals, especially small ones. Fat Nuggets was likely the first such creature you had ever directly interacted with, and you suspect that the pig managed to thaw hitherto unknown frosted corner of your soul with the instinct to cuddle small, cute things.

This was not, previously, part of your character.

And having this unwelcome new emotion directed at Alastor and his absurd tail is something you expect you will have to have a long conversation with yourself about.

For now though, when Alastor’s tail stands upright like a startled deer, you can’t quite stop yourself from making a soft _aww_ sound.

“Angel, are you bothering Alastor?” Charlie’s voice comes from the top of the stairs, and you can hear her heavy-soled shoes thumping on the rug as she rounds the corner, no doubt ready to break up whatever squabble is happening. Apparently, the sight of Angel struggling to get to Alastor’s newly discovered tail, fending off a microphone with two hands and wielding a large, powder blue bow in the other two, is not what she expected. She stops dead on the landing. 

“Wow, that’s adorable.” She says in a way that suggests she may not even realize she is speaking aloud. You don’t miss the rising color in Alastor’s cheeks.

Niffty too takes the whining pleas of Angel and Alastor’s continued polite but threatening rebuffs as a signal to rejoin the party. 

“Oh man, someone found Alastor’s tail, huh?” She chatters from near the stairs, “yeah the gap _moe_ is pretty killer, I remember my first time” Niffty sighs wistfully and folds her arms, apparently content to watch the scene unfold.

Vaggie, who is already downstairs, and hasn’t bothered to intervene up to this point, either out of disinterest or general distain for the two demons involved, sighs and pushes herself to her feet. Charlie seems to snap out of her reverie at the sight, and trots the rest of the way down the stairs to help Vaggie break things up.

“Alright, Angel, drop it, would you?” Vaggie grumbles cocking her hip and fixing Angel with a glare. Angel, apparently, has no self-preservation instinct with Vaggie either, and scoffs.

“Yeah right bitch. There’s jack shit to do in this place, I’m not gonna pass this up, besides I just wanna touch it!” Then, to Alastor, “Chill out red, don’t be such a prude. I just wanna know what all the hype is about.”

Alastor’s face, in spite of its usual corpse hue, is now nearly as red as his hair as he sputters.

“E-Excuse me?! My personal body parts are not here for your amusement, and I would greatly appreciate it if—"

“Hey, are we eating or what?” Husk grumbles, sidling up to you with a bottle in one hand.

“Yeah, Angel, give it a fucking rest already we’re hungry.” Vaggie presses, actually reaching for one of Angel’s arms, which twists out of her grip. Vaggie is reddening too at this point, prompting Charlie to step forward and try to diffuse the situation.

“Hey, um, guys, maybe we should all just sit down and—”

“Knock it the fuck off Angel or I swear to god!”

“Gimme that fucking tail!”

“ _Unhand me!_ ”

All four of them break into a struggle, with Angel trying to get to Alastor, Vaggie to Angel, and Charlie to all three before anyone loses a limb. Niffty, apparently delighted by the chaos, stands at a middle distance cackling.

You briefly consider helping Charlie, but quickly decide that the risk of catching one of Vaggie’s fists, bleeding everywhere, and creating even more chaos is probably more than it’s worth. Instead, you turn to Husk, who has started assembling a sandwich without much interest in the brawl taking over the living room.

“So, a tail?”

“Huh?” Husk turns to you, licking mustard off one claw and twitching his whiskers, “Oh yeah,” He returns to a plate of assorted meat.

“Is he embarrassed about it?” You ask, as Alastor let out something close to a yelp behind you and Vaggie returns a string of expletives.

“Eh,” Husk shrugs, “He just doesn’t like being touched.” He pauses for a second and looks back at you, “seriously, don’t touch him. I’m not sure how the spider fucker is still breathing, shit’s asking for trouble.”

You nod absently, and glance back at the struggle, where Angel is leaning all the way over Alastor’s extended leg, his shoe planted on Angel’s chest, Vaggie struggling with Angel’s lower set of arms. Angel makes one last awkward lunge, and manages to wrap one hand around the base of Alastor’s tail.

This, apparently, is the final straw.

Alastor freezes, and you can almost see a disgusted shiver running up his spine. There is a popping sound, like a radio cutting out, and Alastor is across the room, returned to his usual tailcoat, with the apron draped over one arm. For a moment, the hotel is unnaturally, impossibly silent, like all of the noise has been forcefully sucked from the space, and then it all comes crashing back with an oppressive screeching wave of static. You wince and cover your ears.

Alastor is smoothing his coat and hair. When you glance back, Angel is on the ground, first two sets of arms handcuffed behind his back in a pair of antique shackles. Vaggie pushes herself up from the floor, dusting herself in obvious annoyance, before throwing her hands up in disgust and stalking over towards the table. Charlie looks confused, and perhaps slightly relieved at the lack of serious injuries.

“Aye, what the fuck smiles?” Angel whines when he notices his new restraints, arching his back and wiggling his fingers experimentally. Alastor ignores this, and instead stalks over to Angel and raps his microphone on the ground next to his head.

“Five foot rule.” He says darkly, and then walks past the prone spider with an exhausted sigh.

Angel raises and eyebrow and squirms.

“You know I’m into this right?” He gripes to Alastor’s back, and you see Alastor’s tall red ears twitch, but he doesn’t say anything. Angel frowns, then tries again.

“Wait, you have the keys right smiles?” Alastor just plucks a plate from the end of the table and starts crafting a sandwich. Ignored, Angel turns his attention to you and Husk, who is already halfway through his meal.

“Husky-baby” Angel lowers his voice and bats his eyes several times, sitting up on one hip, “Do you like me helpless? I could really use a rescue right now, big guy.” He winks and arches his back, making his fluffy chest stand out. Husker actually appears to choke on his sandwich, coughing several times before hurrying back towards the bar with a red face. 

Angel sighs, and blows a tuft of hair out of his face.

“Feathers?” He asks hopefully, but you really aren’t sure how to help at this point, or even that you should, given Angel basically just assaulted your boss, which is generally your job. You shrug helplessly.

Angel rolls his eyes, and extends his third pair of arms, pushing himself up from the floor with a grunt.

“Well, jokes on him anyways,” Angel grins at you and waves his fifth and sixth hands, before looking past you with a grimace. “Shit.”

Alastor’s hand appears over your shoulder, and snaps, and suddenly Angel’s third set of arms is _also_ cuffed. You look at Alastor, who is slightly disheveled, and holding a plate with a pair of absolutely masterfully crafted sandwiches— _Muffulettas_. Without a word, he hands you the plate, and struts off towards the stairs with an indignant sigh.

You look at the sandwiches for a moment, blinking, wondering why he has handed them to you, and then back to Angel, who is fruitlessly straining against the iron shackles and whining pathetically. After a moment he looks at you, then down at the two sandwiches on your plate.

“Aye, babe, help a sister out yeah?” You look between Angel and the sandwiches defensively, and start to back away. “Just a bite toots? Come on, I’m hungry.”

You can’t help but laugh at this.

“Then you shouldn’t have assaulted the chef” you shoot back, which makes Angel huff angrily, and switch to plying Charlie for food. With a chuckle, you turn towards the stairs, just catching Alastor’s back as he rounds the landing.

Sticking out between the tails of his coat, you can just make out a small fluffy red tail, with a big, powder blue bow on top. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again <3 I hope everyone had a fun Valentine’s day and all that! I made a banger singles dinner for my roommate and I, which was fun.  
> I’m gonna keep the notes short for this chapter, but I did want to link this little animation of a Hunicast moment, which basically inspired the second half of this chapter:   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukQ0SSjlv1E  
> I love all these little animation shorts of the Hunicast, so I wanted to give a little nod to one, especially because Angel really doesn’t have enough self-preservation instinct to NOT mess with Al’s tail.   
> Poor Radio Demon lol.   
> Anyways, I wrote this chapter in a more active style, since I was trying to block this scene out as though it were happening in the show rather than just on paper. Let me know how that worked out, and if the little fight scene at the end was too confusing or chaotic. I had a really strong visual idea of how this whole thing would play out, and sometimes transferring that into writing can be a bit awkward.   
> In other news, Alastor’s tail haunts my dreams, and furries are going to hell.   
> See you all in the next one!


	47. There Isn’t Any (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm going on a short camping trip this weekend with my roommates, which means I wont be in town on Friday to post, so instead I thought of a fun alternative, which also lets me get out some of the shorter scenes that have been living rent-free in my brain for a while. I split this chapter into three parts, which I will post today, tomorrow, and Thursday. These three are all short vignette-style scenes, which can be read separately or in a big chunk, whichever works for you. I hope this keeps you all fed for the weekend
> 
> And speaking of feeding, in this first part, you notice something strange about Alastor and food.

Chapter 40: There Isn’t Any (Part 1)

* * *

The library is almost always empty. 

Initially, you had been doing your map-sketches in the lobby, which was a…mixed bag.

And it's not that you don’t like Husker or Angel, the former of whom seems to live behind the bar and the latter can be found on the lobby couch at random, odd hours, it’s just that…

Well, take yesterday for example. You were working at the table in front of the bar, when Angel draped himself dramatically over your work, complaining about terminal boredom and insisting that he was near death. Foolishly, you had put your things aside for a moment to talk to him, which led to you sitting through a very _very_ inappropriate story that had Husker cackling from behind the bar and you sitting frozen and red down to your wing-tips. You hadn’t fully known what Angel’s job was up to that point, and he seemed more than thrilled to explain it in excruciating detail. When you had tried to go back to work, Angel had turned his attentions to Husker, who tolerated this for about three minutes before using you as a human shield to keep Angel’s hands away from his booze and general person. 

And the day before that, you didn’t get anything at all done after lunch because Husker had showed you how to hide a card in the palm of your hand, something he called “palming,” which you insisted on mastering, only, it was a bit harder than it looked. The way Husk did it, it was like he could make the card disappear and reappear at will, which he insisted was all about angles, something you couldn’t seem to get the hang of. Husk compared it to concealing a weapon, which you had never actually had to do before. You hadn’t exactly had much use for subterfuge in your previous life, which you tried to explain to Husk, who seemed both shocked and appalled by your apparent naïveté. Suffice to say it was dark by the time you could palm the card properly. That, and a pocket knife, which Husk also insisted was a necessary skill. 

Either way, you resolved today to move your operations to a new location before Alastor notices your lack of industry and devises some convoluted and likely sadistic punishment.

And the library is always empty, so, you move there. 

It takes you a little searching, but eventually you find a chair by a window, one which bafflingly looks out over the drive despite this tower being on the _back_ of the building which logically should…

_No, don’t worry about it_ , you remind yourself as you dust off the leather armchair and pull a lamp over from another corner. In spite of the window, the library has a stubborn gloominess about it that requires a lamp, and even then you can’t seem to get anything more than a soft sort of glow.

 _I swear this hotel is more theatrical than Alastor sometimes_ , you think grumpily, as you spread out your papers on a nearby table and get to work in the moody light. You have finally moved to the fourth floor which, so far, has been much less of a headache than the third had insisted on being. The only odd thing you had found so far was a set of double doors leading out onto what you are fairly sure was the lobby roof, given the presence of an entire, intact locomotive. Although the doors were unlocked, and the roof clearly meant to be walked on, the train itself appeared to have been planted in the space with very little forethought.

If you didn’t know better, which at this point, you can’t honestly say that you do, you would have said that someone—or something—had grabbed the train straight off of the track while it was running, ripping up a section of the rails with it. The roof was scattered with sharp pieces of broken steel rebar and shattered, rotting wooden slats that looked as though they had been there for quite some time. The train itself was mostly intact, except for one snapped coupling rod where one of the driving wheels appears to have been violently ripped from its place. 

The whole scene gave you a vague and rather unwholesome image of Alastor using his spatial magic to snap a _moving_ train off its tracks and drop it on the roof, even though you were fairly certain that this, at least, was not his doing.

 _Fairly_ certain.

Either way, none of this was what bothered you, what _bothered_ you, was that from the end of the roof, you could see the awkwardly-added tower that you realized was the library rising above you. The library, which is on the third floor, rising above this, the roof of the second floor, which you accessed through a door from the fourth floor.

Thinking about this had given and continues to give you something of a migraine, and so, on the map you have yet to sketch of the fourth floor, you decide to label the whole roof as “off-limits” and just leave the doors locked. Cleaning up all of the broken railroad tracks would be a pain anyways. 

You sigh and shift through your papers, editing your map sketches as you go and generally trying to reduce the architectural nonsense of the hotel to a bare minimum, which is something you have to sit down and do every few days or risk getting buried in the twisted logic of this place.

The insistent dim light of the library distracts you from the general passage of time outside of the hotel, and even with a window nearby, you don’t notice the sun set and the sky change from its usual “daytime” red to a darker “nighttime” maroon. You have always been a focused worker, a habit perhaps bred from how little angels need sleep, and you find ignoring the more physical aspects of your new body to be surprisingly easy. Suffice to say, you don’t even notice that you are hungry until you smell food.

Your stomach whines as the smell drifts towards you through the bookshelves, and you snap your head up, discovering in a sudden crash that you are _starving._ You glance out the window, and realize that it is well past dinnertime, and that you must have worked straight through Alastor’s cooking. 

_Then, what am I smelling?_

You realize an instant before he rounds the corner, by the way the static clings to your feathers and blurs the air in a weird, impossible way, that Alastor is the one in the library, presumably with whatever is currently making your stomach try to claw its way up and out of your throat. 

“Darling, there you are!” Alastor exclaims as he comes into view, brandishing a bowl of something lidded with an upturned plate in one hand, “Why, you lazy girl, here you were in the library doing who-knows-what, and you missed dinner.” You blink at Alastor, and then look down at the notebook sitting visibly on your lap.

“I was working.” You say slowly, gesturing towards the notebook and the stray papers on the table, “which, I believe, you told me to do.” Admittedly, the last part is probably unnecessary, but Alastor’s constant condescension does begin to grate after a while.

Alastor blinks at you in a way that suggests he seriously hadn’t expected you to be working, which you find vaguely offensive, and then grins even wider.

“Why, as much as I do admire your work-ethic sweetheart, I _don’t_ believe I told you to skip dinner, now did I?” Alastor talks to you like one might to a very small, or very stupid, child. “As my cherished employee I can’t have you collapsing from malnourishment! That would be such an inconvenience, really.”

Alastor snaps one dark hand, and the table next to you moves around your chair and pushes itself up to your knees, which makes you briefly panic. You realize pretty quickly that the table is too small to actually harm you, but the sensation of it sliding into your lap to pin you to the chair makes you feel trapped in a way you do _not_ want to be around Alastor, and you plant your hands against the table edge, trying fruitlessly to stop its mindless journey.

Apparently, when Alastor tells a piece of furniture to go somewhere, it doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and you don’t manage to so much as budge the thing before Alastor sets the bowl down in front of you, flipping off the lid and laying it off to one side, and handing you a spoon with an expectant grin.

You give him a look which you hope conveys both “what is this” and “get this table off of me before I break something,” but Alastor either doesn’t get the message or doesn’t care, because he starts to browse the bookshelf across from you.

“Alastor.” You say. He doesn’t look at you, and instead pulls a book from the shelf and hums in acknowledgement. Assuming that is all you are going to get in the way of his attention, you continue, “What is this?”

Alastor twitches one tall ear and glances over to you briefly.

“It’s beef and brandy stew with suet dumplings. An old English classic, and a personal favorite of mine which I learned on a jaunt I once took to the old country.” He nods definitively and looks back down at his book.

“Not the stew Alastor, I meant why did you bring it to me?” You are feeling more and more trapped by the second, in spite of the serene and cozy setting, and Alastor’s weird gesture of kindness isn’t helping. You are reminded of a fairy tale, one a human you had once taken an interest in used to tell to her children before bed. Something about two children lost in the forest who find a house of candy, which turns out to be the home of a cannibalistic witch that feeds them candy in order to fatten them for slaughter. Admittedly, this story was rather dark, but you are starting to understand its usefulness as a cautionary tale.

Alastor makes a thoughtful noise, then, apparently satisfied with his choice in a book, sits himself in the chair across from you.

“As I said darling, you skipped dinner, and not for the first time I might add.” He says carelessly, and opens the book to begin reading, adjusting his monocle with one hand. 

You stare down at the soup and wonder vaguely if it’s poisoned, and if so, how likely a poison is to actually harm you. You can feel your mouth water, and your stomach makes another rebellious attempt to consume itself.

Alastor glances up at the noise, and looks between you and the food for a moment.

“Why, darling, no need to be polite, I’ve already had supper. _Eat_.” He says, and in a tone that leaves very little room for argument. You swallow thickly. _He hasn’t poisoned me yet,_ you reason somewhat impotently, _and I did skip dinner._

After a pause, for which you really, _really_ have to fight to not inhale the food in front of you, you realize that this is a losing battle and that you probably couldn’t make yourself walk away from something that smells _this_ good.

To save face, and in between bites, you do manage to grumble something about how you could have just gone to the kitchen and gotten a granola bar, before the ambrosia before you captures your full attention.

Because _Michael’s mercy_ , this stuff, stew, whatever it is, is amazing. Rich and heavy with a strong dark malted flavor, you think you might actually tear up with how phenomenal it is.

When you come out of your fugue state, after swiping your finger around the empty bowl and licking it clean, you find Alastor watching you over his book with an expression of extreme satisfaction. And, frankly, you can’t even find it in yourself to be annoyed.

Nor can you find the will to resist telling him how insanely good the stew was, praise he absorbs with trademark smugness and raptorlike attention.

Later, though, after you have taken your bowl down to the kitchen and gotten ready for bed, staring at the swimming shadows on the ceiling of your room and stretching your aching wings out to either side under your comforter, you can’t help but think…

This isn’t the first time Alastor has made a point to feed you. At the dinner table he almost _always_ watches you eat, so much so you frequently don’t even notice him eating himself. And he had sent Niffty to bring you lunch once, and the other day, after Angel had made a scene about his tail, he had taken the time to actually _make_ your sandwich from the bar before leaving.

But _bringing_ you the food himself, that seems…well actually you have no idea _what_ that seems. It’s like he wants to _watch_ you eat, like that’s somehow, strangely fun for him.

You haven’t been eating for very long, granted, and the other demons do seem to enjoy eating in groups, as did the humans, so maybe eating _with_ others isn’t inherently strange. But then again, and much like everything having to do with Alastor, this seems to exceed what even you, in your infinite lack of experience, would classify as _normal_.

And besides, what does a bloodthirsty monster like him have to gain from something like this. You briefly try to imagine Michael making a point to see that every Angel is fed and even eating with them, and the image is so ludicrous that you actually laugh aloud into your empty room. Alastor _must_ have some kind of endgame, like, _maybe he’s poisoning me slowly, and he is just waiting for the effects to become visible._

You consider this, and then immediately decide that it’s both stupid and probably impossible, given he seems to cook everything in huge batches that he himself eats from. 

_So, what then?_ You don’t even bother trying to tell yourself that he is just being considerate, but you have a hard time coming up with alternatives. 

“If only his food wasn’t so good.” You wonder at the ceiling, knowing that no matter how many ways you look at it there is no way you will be able to get into a mind as twisted as Alastor’s

You don’t wonder for long though, as the warm, sleepy weight of the food in your stomach coaxes you away from the rational part of your brain and into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all liked that quick interlude! The other two will be similar in length, and will be posted tomorrow and Thursday, so feel free to check in for each one, or come back on Thursday to read them all as a single, longer chapter.   
> Next week I have some more serious drama to get to, and then on to the end of part two, so enjoy the silly stuff!   
> Anyways, as always, thanks for the support, clicks, kudos, and comments, you all are absolutely fabulous. Stay safe!


	48. There Isn’t Any (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all liked yesterdays short chapter, remember all of these are independent short stories, so some of the questions raised may not be answered until next week :3
> 
> In this part, you and Niffty try to catch up with a mess...

Chapter 40: There Isn’t Any (Part 2)

* * *

You almost don’t notice it, your first time down the hall.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t there the first time, but it’s here now.

What was it Charlie had said, when you mentioned the missing room on the second floor?

_“I’m sure it’ll turn up soon.”_

At the time you had just been exasperated by Charlie’s insistent cryptic attitude, but really, who could blame you? How in all of hell were you supposed to know she was right.

You sigh and adjust the high collar of your sweater. You keep expecting yourself to be more prepared for the hotel’s general _weirdness_ , for lack of a better term, but apparently that was wishful thinking, because here, right in front of you, is room 215.

The fourth floor is done in a somewhat different style than the rest of the hotel, more vibrant reds and lighter, teakwood doors. The difference in style is what drew your attention, in fact. Room 215 sticks out like a broken pin feather, with its heavy dark door and shiny bronze number plate, it’s obviously out of place.

_Which begs the question, why is it here?_

You have a brief impulse to ignore the door, walk on and continue with your general survey. Other than this anomaly, and the odd winding layout of the floor, nothing on this level has actually been much out of place. Every room you have checked so far has been furnished, and every one numbered in the correct order—a first for the hotel as far as you can tell. And unlike the third floor, you haven’t gotten lost _once_ all day. You had been hoping that this relative normalcy would hold, and that you could finish this floor in just a day or two, without any architectural impossibilities or rogue balconies to contend with.

 _Wishful thinking_ you muse, as you fumble the bulky skeleton key into the lock. _Of course this place wouldn’t let me off that easily._

What nags at you, as you push the heavy door in and cough at an ancient puff of dust that briefly clouds your vision, is Charlie’s choice of words. She had said that the room would “ _turn up,”_ as though even she didn’t know exactly where it was. If it were just strangely placed on the fourth floor, wouldn’t she have just told you that? Charlie does not at all seem like the type to play a practical joke, certainly not one that goes for weeks and makes your job harder. Even her vague wording and general unhelpful advice about the hotel seems born more of genuine ignorance than any sort of desire to confuse you, you are sure Charlie would be more helpful if she knew how.

So then, what did she mean by “ _turn up_?”

The room itself is dusty, and bedpost obscured by thick cobwebs and the carpet powdered in a fine layer of grime. Every other room on the floor so far has been clean, in fact, everything you have seen up to this point, excluding the library and perhaps the storage room on the ground floor, has been immaculately clean. Niffty, while erratic, is industrious, and you strongly suspect that there isn’t an inch of the hotel that she hasn’t scoured. How had this one room escaped her notice?

The interior, other than the dust, seems to be the same as the other rooms on the second floor, and what with the fourth floor having a somewhat more modern aesthetic to its furniture, this just adds to the creepy sense of non-belonging. In fact, now that the dust has settled, there seems to be something else in the air here, a certain heaviness, a buzzing sensation on the back of your tongue. The feeling is vaguely familiar, and though you can’t quite place where from, and it puts you on edge. You feel almost like you are under the gaze of some very large and not particularly friendly power. 

After a lifetime in heaven, where everything you say, do, or think feels like it is within Michael’s oppressive observational sphere, you find that you are none too eager to experience that feeling, or anything like it, again. Somehow, the room has an air of unwelcome, and you have the strong sense that whatever unseen force is watching you does _not_ want you here. In fact, you decide, the faster you get out of here the better. You haven’t even fully entered, still holding the door open with one taloned foot, and you don’t hesitate to back straight out after a quick survey.

 _Niffty would probably appreciate the tip about all this dust_ , you rationalize, and let the door creak closed behind you. Once you are back in the hall you feel immediately better, like the air is somehow lighter, and you click your tongue once, trying to rid your mouth of the strange sour taste the room has left you with.

“Niffty?” you call down the hall, looking out for the fast-moving little demon. If you’re lucky she will be nearby, otherwise you will have to wait for lunch, since she would probably be impossible to find in this place. 

You don’t see her, so you start towards the stairwell, brushing the lingering moats of dust off of your leggings. At the top of the stairs, you call for Niffty again, figuring that your best chance of finding her would be her coming to you, rather than the other way around. You rarely see her sit still unless someone is actively speaking to her, and even then her attention seems tenuous.

“Niffty?” you call up the staircase, peering up the spiraling tower towards the higher floors and listening for any tiny footsteps. After a moment, you cross to the other side and look over the railing, putting a hand on the banister and leaning over slightly to look down. You open your mouth to say her name again, but don’t get halfway to speaking before a voice startles you.

“Yeah? Need something?”

You spin to your right, and come face to face with Niffty’s one wide, staring fluorescent eye. Panicking, you take a half step back with a yelp, surprised by both the closeness to Niffty’s eye. Niffty giggles manically at your display, and twirls her feather duster in one hand girlishly. Niffty loos you up and down with er trademark flighty stare.

“Oh, wow, I love your sweater.” She says with a sharp-toothed grin.

“Thank you?” you say uncertainly, waiting for your fight-or-flight instinct to see itself out. Niffty is not what most demons or angels would call intimidating, but unexpectedly being face-to-face with her single frantic eye was startling, especially at eye level, which Niffty usually _isn’t_.

You realize then that she is standing _on_ the banister, tiny kitten heels perched on the varnished wood in a way that makes your palms sweat. How in the seven circles she managed to get there so fast, and so _quietly_ , is far beyond you, but her precarious stance at the edge of the stairwell is giving you vertigo.

“Niffty! Come down, you might fall,” You insist, holding out a hand to help the smaller demon down from her perch. The banisters are all woefully short, seemingly just below your center of gravity in a way that gives you no assurance that they would do anything to stop a fall, but even then they are still nearly Niffty’s height. You suppose it’s foolish to worry for her safety, given that demons are already dead and therefore deathless, but she could still hurt herself.

Niffty looks between you and your outstretched hand, and makes a choking noise, her face turning a particularly vibrant shade of pink. She appears to struggle with something internally, before switching her feather duster to her other hand and letting you help her down with a muffled squeal. Since she rarely lets you within ten feet of her, you find this encouraging, if strange, behavior. That is, until her feet hit the ground and she backpedals a dozen steps away from you. She is so quick, it’s like one instant she is in front of you, and the next she is halfway down the hall, pressed up against one wall like a frightened animal. 

_I guess this is still…good?_ You shrug internally, still not sure why the tiny demon is so insistent about avoiding you, but willing to consider her not running away altogether as a good sign.

“Did you, um, I mean, you called so, did you need something?” She stutters, squeaky voice barely carrying down the hall.

You stifle an involuntary chuckle at her display, not wanting to offend her, and try your best to channel Charlie’s friendly, approachable aura. Niffty, although your conversation the other day leads you to believe she has been in hell for nearly seventy years, has something innately childish in her manner that you find endearing, if hard to understand. 

“Yes, I just wanted to let you know I found a room on this floor that hasn’t been cleaned, I thought you would want to—" You don’t manage to finish the thought before Niffty, apparently scandalized right out of her fear, rushes up to you with a somewhat unhinged expression.

“Oh man no way! I was super sure that I got every room on this floor this morning! That’s just awful, I’m so sorry!” _Is she angry?_ Her apology comes out slightly closer to feral than sweet, and you wonder if maybe you shouldn’t have brought this up at all.

“Oh, no, don’t be sorry. That room is really strange anyway, I’m not even sure why it’s on this floor, so don’t—”

“OHMYGOSH,” Niffty interrupts you again, standing on her tiptoes below you in manic excitement, and brandishing her feather duster “Don’t tell me its room 215?? That darn room has been giving me so much trouble it’s a total headache, I just can’t catch it!”

You blink at her, trying to dissect that statement alongside her dizzying swing from anger to excitement, but don’t really get anywhere further than blank agreement.

“Yes, it’s, um, room 215…” you trail off, when Niffty fairly squeals in excitement, and then zips past you down the hall.

After a moment of silence, in which you look down the corridor to where her blurry form rounded a corner, she pops back into view, pink bob somewhat disheveled, and waves to you frantically.

“Well come on, silly, let’s go quick before we lose it!” And then she’s gone again, leaving you to trot down the hall after her. The corridor winds strangely, but at every turn, you can see Niffty waiting impatiently for you to catch up, bouncing on the balls of her feet until she spots you rounding the previous corner and zips off down the next stretch of hall.

You can’t help but smile, in spite of yourself, wondering where the little demon thinks the room will get to while you two are in the hall. In fact, you are so focused on this strange game of cat-and-mouse that you and Niffty seem to be playing, you almost don’t notice when you pass the door.

Or at least, where the door was.

You pause at the end of the hall, internal compass telling you that you have returned to where you were earlier. Confused, you turn around and look back down the hall.

_456…458…460…That’s where it was, wasn’t it?_

You walk back to the blank wall between 456 and 458, the spot where you are _very sure_ 215 had been not ten minutes earlier.

You crouch, running your hand down the seam in the patterned wallpaper, wondering stupidly if there is some kind of hidden door. When your hand hits the baseboard, it comes away dusty, and you realize that the carpet along the wall is all covered in a thin layer of dirt and ruined cobwebs, the same grime you brushed off of your shoulder when you left the room.

_What in the—_

“Hey what’s the holdup, come on!” Niffty pops her head around the next turn, and spots you crouched above the carpet, rubbing your fingers together.

She dashes up to you, peering around to see what has caught your attention, and makes a face at the grime coating your hand.

“Gross, what a mess! What happened here?” She dusts your hand off with her feather duster, and then takes a moment too look around and the halo of dirt, then she seems to realize something, “Shoot, it got away didn’t it?”

You look towards her, feeling entirely foolish. And she blinks her single eye at you.

“I’m sorry Niffty, I could have sworn it was here,” You shrug uselessly, “I didn’t mean to get you excited for nothing.”

Niffty blushes furiously, and shakes her head so fast it makes you concerned for her brain.

“No, no, no, its fine! I don’t mind at all, now I get to clean up this mess here, and I really love cleaning, so that’s great! That room is always running away anyways, I’m totally used to it!” She babbles, pulling a tiny vacuum out of thin air and starting work on the carpet.

You smile absently, and shuffle out of the path of her aggressive vacuuming. _Niffty doesn’t seem bothered by this crazy place, so I shouldn’t be either_ , you decide, although you do still feel distinctly foolish about wasting her time when she can barely stand to talk to you.

In a flash, she has the carpet back to its pristine state, leaving no evidence that there ever was a door to an uncleanable, uncatchable hotel room to begin with.

 _This is completely mad_ , you think to yourself, but smile when Niffty glances up at you, still blushing.

“Well, we’ll get that room next time,” You offer, which you think is a fairly innocuous statement, but appears to panic Niffty.

“W-we?” she stammers, and then appears to combust into a tiny anxious flame, before taking off at a sprint down the hall away from you without another word.

You stand for a moment, staring, trying to figure out where your use of collective pronouns went wrong, before deciding that you are unlikely to ever fully understand Niffty.

You are about to turn and head back the way you came when Niffty’s head appears partially around the next corner.

“I’m sorry, that was rude,” She shouts back towards you, and then, “bye,” and she’s gone again in a blur of fuchsia.

This time, you don’t even try to hide your laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhh, I love writing Niffty, she and I have a lot of the same energy lol, very awkward and impatient, oh that I could make it look as cute as she does lol.  
> I really love the weirdness of the hotel, I read House of Leaves in my teens, if any of you know of that book, and I really feel like I'm channeling that same vibe in these chapters, they're super fun for me :) I hope they're working for you all too!  
> Anyways, tomorrow we will be checking in with Charlie, and then a long weekend for me :3. Let me know if you like this format, and i might bring it back if I have another strange week, or just for fun sometime, I know daily uploads is exciting. Looking back, I have literally no idea how I was uploading daily at the beginning of this thing lol, inspiration made me a monster.  
> Ok, see you all tomorrow for the final short chapter!


	49. There Isn’t Any (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final short chapter! Be sure to let me know what you all thought of this format <3 and thank you all for the lovely comments, I know i haven't been responding much this week but things have been chaotic!
> 
> In this final mini-sode, you get the day off and do some thinking.

Chapter 40: There Isn’t Any (Part 3)

* * *

Alastor’s shadow, unlike a lot of his tricks, has not gotten any less creepy with time.

Not that Alastor himself is not deeply, deeply, creepy. But little things, like the constant static or the sharp yellow teeth, have become somewhat familiar. You find that, these days, catching his stare doesn’t make you want to sprint in the opposite direction _every_ time, only _most_ times. 

And, that’s not to say that Alastor’s other shadow minion…things…aren’t somewhat familiar as well. More than once you have seen him spawn one or two imp-like shadows to help with a task or whatever it is that he whispers to them, and you have become somewhat accustomed to the twisted things. If you squint—squint _a lot_ , when you’re in a really good mood or just ate a big meal maybe—they’re almost a little cute, in an empty non-autonomous enslaved soul-fragment sort of a way.

But Alastor’s shadow, the one that looks like he branded his silhouette into the flesh of reality, with the gaping, grinning maw and twisted garbled half-speech, and the static that somehow sounds like it’s playing in reverse. That _particular_ shadow is just as panic-inducing every time you see it.

So, when you open your door bright and early one morning, thinking more about what might be for breakfast than what might be outside of your room, and come face to face with a formless, Alastor-shaped, horror, you will admit that your reaction may have been a bit overblown.

The shriek, you could have done without. Slamming the door, too, was probably a pointless gesture seeing as the thing as the thing came straight _through_ the door, pouring under the frame like liquid fear and reforming on your side with the same uncomprehending sadistic grin. Punching it, now that had been the real misfire, because the second your hand touched the weird, texture-less edge of non-existence that was this thing’s skin, your whole arm went numb up to the elbow and your bones sang with that awful backwards static, which forced you into a calmer, more rational state of mind if only to avoid _ever touching that thing again_.

The shadow laughs this butchered cackle when hit it, and then hums a broken, mutilated tune while you try to calm yourself down. After what is apparently all the waiting this thing is willing to put up with, it makes a noise that isn’t entirely unlike wind over jagged rocks, and extends its hand towards you. You flinch bodily away from the crawling, indistinct void before you realize that there is something _in_ its hand, a piece of paper to be exact, which it is apparently trying to give to you. Swallowing the curdled lump in your throat, you take the paper with two fingers, grinding your teeth over the bottomless sensation of cold that radiates from its extended limb. 

With its task finished, the shadow bows in what you might consider a polite gesture if its long, jagged horns didn’t come uncomfortably close to your face and you weren’t backed up all the way to your dresser, and just seems to dissolve into the air with a whining hiss. 

The first breath you take after that thing is out of your room feels like the first breath you have taken in minutes, and you decide to just sit straight down on the floor where you are and remind yourself that Alastor, despite employing a menagerie of blood curdling puppets, probably does not want you dead at this precise moment, and will likely not be sending his shadow to eat you.

_And if that thing’s stomach is anything like the rest of it, I think I would actually rather be eaten by Alastor._ You grimace, running a shaking hand over your hair and waiting for the adrenaline to wash out of your system.

After a long moment, you remember the note, the actual reason for that extremely unwelcome visit, still clutched gingerly in one hand, and unfold it.

It’s from Alastor, written in small, neat, and vaguely familiar cursive.

_Darling, I was called away on some unexpected business, so you may take the day if you wish, since I will be unable to supervise._

_Since when does he supervise me when I’m working_? You think, but decide not to complain, seeing as you now have the day to yourself.

The familiarity of the writing does make you pause, and it takes you a few moments to recall that this is the same as the note you had found on a plate of leftover food in the fridge some time ago. You had assumed that the writing had been Husk’s or maybe Niffty’s, but you hadn’t even considered that it might have been Alastor’s, especially since it was attached to a plate of food that, for all intents and purposes appeared to be for you.

_Again with the food_ , you puzzle, tossing the note onto your desk. Now that you think about it, Alastor really does seem to have…something going on there. You remind yourself to keep tabs on that as you unlock your door. 

You can’t help but pop your head into the hallway before leaving your room, looking compulsively both ways to double check that Alastor’s shadow is well and truly gone, and not lurking in the hallway like shadows tend to do. Once you confirm that the coast is clear, you head for the stairs.

In the lobby, breakfast is already laid out, with a basket of fruit and a covered plate piled with muffins. You expect that Alastor would call this “simple,” considering the extravagant portions he normally prepares, but frankly every time you come downstairs and find food _laid out_ for you it’s still a pleasant surprise. You sometimes worry, when you wake up and have yet to open your eyes, that you will find yourself back in heaven with nothing but papery, flavorless Ambrosia to eat.

You examine that thought, as you swipe an apple and a muffin from the table. _But I would be happy to be back in heaven, normally, just a bit disappointed about the food?_ Somehow you don’t feel enthusiastic, but you suppose that that’s just the influence of the apple you are biting into, which is, predictably, absolutely fabulous.

Deciding not to read too hard into your morning thoughts, you scan the lobby for something to inspire your day-off activities. Husk isn’t in yet, which happens sometimes, and the bar is strangely empty without his constant glowering presence. Angel too appears to either not be awake or not home, as the couch is conspicuously open. You could hypothetically check his room and see if he wants to cash in one of his “girls days,” but you find the idea somewhat exhausting. And besides, if anyone other than Charlie could pull you away from a regular workday just to go shopping, it would be Angel, who seems completely unimpressed with the hotel’s resident Overlord, so why waste it on a day you have _off_. Frankly, the way Angel acts you would think Overlords are just a daily occurrence for him.

Well, if Angel isn’t around, that leaves the day for you, and there is really only one thing you have been using your spare time for lately. _Training_.

You hum a hymn you remember from an earth church, and trot back up the stairs, eating your apple core whole and practically inhaling your muffin. Angel thinks eating the apple core is disgusting, and practically threw a fit the first time he saw you do it, but as far as you can tell, it _is_ edible, and you don’t intend on _not_ eating food you are given the option to eat. Even the bitterness of the core is more exciting than Ambrosia, and you could probably be happy eating nothing but apple cores forever if only for the novelty of _flavor_ , in any form.

On the second floor, you pilfer the closet for the only thing you have managed to find so far that even approximates a weapon. _Well, anything other than those swords over the fireplace_ , which Charlie had told you were strictly decorative, which was disappointing. No one, so far, has missed the broom handle.

You unscrew the broom head from the heavy stick, and heft it over one shoulder, heading the opposite way down the hall and towards the balcony by Charlie’s room. Lately, you have been trying to keep your training outdoors since Angel yelled at you one morning for practicing falls off of your bed, which was apparently very loud. You have a soft goal of landing a jump off of the second-floor balcony, which is only a half dozen meters off the ground and _should_ be an easy jump for you, but you still can’t quite get the hang of the whole “tuck and roll” maneuver without wings.

Instead, you settle for practicing some basic moves with your improvised weapon, and going through some drills. You do sort of miss the tusk you had with you on your first day, not just because it was a fairly vicious weapon, but because you had made it yourself. There was something in the act of breaking it off of the fallen demon and remaking it as a weapon that reminded you in a very basic sense of summoning your divine weapon. Valliant Weapons are forged from the divine energy of the user, a physical expression of holiness and purity. The weapon itself is a part of the summoner, a fragment of their soul, an extension of their limbs, and you now have to contend with the fact that you will never know that pure expression again. You miss your own weapon, especially when you practice with clunky substitutes, but the act of forging a weapon, even a primitive one from a stolen tusk, had something in it of that first perfect act of creation.

Not that you begrudge Angel for rescuing _you_ and not your _weapon_ , which was probably still stuck in the ribcage of that fish demon. You make an involuntary face as bile rises in your throat at the memory, and you almost lose your footing. Panting, you pause and lean on the broom handle. _Best not to dwell on the past_ you remind yourself, and decide now is as good a time as any to take a break, rolling your shoulders to try and loosen your wings. You never lace the corset much during the day, but even then exercising with it on is an unpleasant but necessary evil, considering anyone could walk in on you out here. 

You leave the stick on the wrought iron table and perch yourself on the balcony railing, looking out over the city. There’s something comfortable about crouching on the railing, gripping it with your taloned feet, something that feels more natural than sitting.

At night, the city comes across as almost beautiful, even if the lights are just a little too harsh under the burnt skies, but in the red sunlight you can make out the grime and broken windows of the buildings closest to you. For some reason the hotel is planted on a particularly empty tract of land, raised on a slight hill. You had seen churches do this on earth occasionally, buy out a large area or entire street to facilitate a garden, cemetery, or just to have a sense of separation between the holy and the rest of mankind. It had struck you as a little silly then, to hide the church behind a buffer zone of sorts, but it is especially incongruous with the hotel because of the lack of any real plant life beyond scraggly bushes and scarlet grass. It’s better for you, you suppose, if there is some separation between you and the rest of hell, even if you are keeping your wings covered.

“Pretty isn’t it?” Charlie’s voice comes from behind you, and you snap your head around to spot her coming through the balcony door with a thick book tucked under one arm. At least Charlie, of everyone here, doesn’t wait until she is _right_ behind you to speak, which is a blessed change. 

“Pretty isn’t the word I would use” You say, smiling a bit and shifting onto one foot. 

Charlie laughs a bit, sets her book down on the table next to your improvised weapon, and makes her way towards you, leaning over the balcony and resting her head on one hand.

“Vaggie would probably agree with you, she always says I’m ‘optimistic’ when it comes to hell.” Charlie shrugs and holds her free hand out towards the city, “But, hell is my home.”

You consider this, and look up towards the distant bright spot that is heaven, forever visible in the hellscape sky, like a single crystalline teardrop. The sun in Hell is dim, not like the sun on earth, and you can look straight into it easily, something about the red glow is soft, sad even. Heaven, in comparison, is a harsh light, merciless and strong, it makes your eyes water just to stare at it. It’s harsh, your home, but it is perfect. It’s everything you have always believed to be perfect.

You don’t look away from heaven when you ask Charlie,

“What about it do you find beautiful?”

Charlie hums, and looks at the city through the right angle of her pointer finger and thumb, as though lining it up for a photograph.

“I remember when there was less of it. Dad always talks about how things _used_ to be, I think just to impress me, but he always says that back when he was young and still trying to hit on my mom, there was nothing really _here_ , just empty space and hellfire and stuff, even the overlords didn’t exist yet. When I was just a kid, this place,” She gestures at the hotel, “was way out in the sticks, and the ‘city’ was just by the house.”

You try to imagine hell as empty, but it’s hard. For as long as you have been alive there have been cities in Hell, although smaller ones. In your extermination days it was more like loosely connected towns centered around the imperial palace. Less than the sprawling metropolis of today, but still populated, always too populated.

“Dad set up the overlords, originally, gave them the greenlight to claim territory and all that, and everything just sort of organized itself. People want to live together, you know, to have a society, so they did. That was back before overpopulation, but pretty soon after towns cropped up the exterminations started. They’ve been going on my whole life.” Charlie’s gaze softens in a way that you find wholly unearned by the hellscape, and you have a brief moment of disconnect in which you see Charlie as something very, very _old_. For all of her naiveté, all of her optimism, there is something about her that runs really _deep_ , and you wonder just how old she really is. She doesn’t give you a chance to ask, though.

“I think it’s amazing how much we have built here, in hell.” She smiles, “In the emptiness, people made a city, and even with the executions, everyone still fights, still lives. Some people think Hell is the end, but it’s all I’ve ever known, so I choose to think of it as a beginning.”

You think about this, what it must be like for a being like Charlie who has always existed in hell. She has never known the light of an earth sun, or the love of heaven, never even had a chance to, and yet Charlie is somehow not entirely unlike a human. She is…different, maybe in part due to that strange sense of age that lingers around her in odd moments, but she also embodies some true human qualities: hope, ambition, love, happiness. These are things that should not exist in hell, and yet, here they are, in a soul that was never even mortal, of all things. 

The longer that you were on earth, the more your faith chipped away. The inequality, the unfairness, the sheer tragic reality of earth was a constant rough edge worrying at the corners of your psyche, making you feel things an angel should never feel, question things an angel should never question. At the breaking point, you found that the reality of earth simply would not accept your ideas of justice and fairness on its own, and so you had seized the reins and tried to force the beast to act as you thought it should. 

This had failed, and then you had **fallen**. 

But those feelings, they did not burn away in the holy fire of your **fall,** they had lingered, and in hell they finally began to make a tiny bit of sense. Doctrine stated clearly that hell is not a place that could ever breed creatures like Charlie, and yet here she is. You had been taught your whole life that demons, _especially_ natural born demons, were nothing but pure expressions of evil, and yet in Charlie you could clearly see that that was simply not the case. Heaven was wrong, _is wrong_. The rules in heaven are simple, clear, and yet Charlie is not simple. You are not simple. Humans were not simple. And heaven had no space for nuance.

Could other demons, demons like Alastor even, demons who seemed to breath simple evil, could they be complex too?

“Heaven is perfect,” You say to Charlie, who turns to you with a curious expression, apparently waiting for you to finish. “It’s clean, pristine, nothing is ever out of place. It’s beautiful, I think.” Charlie smiles, and you can just imagine her strange version of your words in her head, probably rendered in pink and with an inappropriate amount of glitter, “But I always thought earth was more beautiful.” You think about all the humans you had so obsessively followed, so desperately sought to understand, to appreciate, in their strange chaotic ways, and you find that you can see that, if you squint, in hell. “I think I can understand how this place might be beautiful, too.” You nod thoughtfully.

The city, you decide, is a mess, but that’s not _really_ what Charlie finds beautiful after all. 

And you can’t help but think, when you see the stars in her eyes as she pulls you in for an awkward sideways hug, that she would find heaven terribly, terribly boring. You don’t mention this to her though, and instead spend the rest of your afternoon training on the balcony while Charlie reads in the rust-colored sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHH ok, SO what did you all think of these shorter chapters? I had a lot of fun, and it was a nice change of pace (although i love my long chapters), so if you all liked them I would be happy to do them again next time i need to mix things up a bit lol.  
> As for this chapter, Charlie is an absolute doll and I feel like we haven't had enough of her lately. I imagine that Charlie is actually pretty old, all things considered, although physically and maybe emotionally I place her in her mid-late 20's, she's a young soul!! It's sometimes super weird for me to imagine how time works in Hell, since once you get there you're the same age forever. It really is vampire rules, I guess.  
> Anyways, Im gonna leave things off here so I can finish packing, but i hope everyone has a great weekend! I will be back to respond to comments on Sunday, because I know I've missed a few <3 thanks guys!!


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